Fair AND Feminist!

When we uphold the rights of trans women in sports,
it’s better for women athletes AND sports.

As a Filipino American, boxing is a big deal in my community. My grandpa used to watch boxing religiously — first on a black-and-white TV, the antenna “strengthened” with a clothes hanger, and later on a big color screen, the better to see the hits and the blood with. My grandfather explained to me the rules and the strategies, and he would point out when boxers bent or broke the rules, or used underhanded techniques to last longer in the ring.

I wasn’t a fan of boxing then, and I’m still not a fan now. Nevertheless, if a woman wants to become a boxer, I will absolutely defend her right to do so. I think it’s a brutal, pointless, and unwatchable sport, but as long as marginalized people pursue it as a sport they want to compete in — whether women or nonwhite people or both — I will support them in pursuing it.

I’m not a big sports person (except for international football — or “soccer” to my fellow Americans), but I am deeply concerned with two issues that are dominating sports discourse right now: fairness and feminism.

So the disinformation surrounding two Olympic women boxers, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, falsely accusing them of being trans and of therefore somehow “cheating” at the Olympics, has been irritating me all day.

I highly recommend reading this article from Christina Cauterucci from Slate that delves into the facts of these two women’s lives, their careers, and the propaganda that has put them at the center of the gender politics of the culture war.

Meanwhile, here’s my fast breakdown about why the “test” administered to these women can’t be trusted, why gender tests that exclude women based on testosterone levels and natural variations on sex genes harms cisgender women athletes, and how the question of “fairness” doesn’t seem to bother people…until we’re discussing trans women athletes.

The facts:

• The “test” was administered by the International Boxing Association, an organization that has been DISQUALIFIED from participation in the Olympics since 2019 due to corruption.

The President at the time has allegedly been involved in the international heroin trade and a Eurasian crime syndicate. “Fairness” does not seem to be one of his top priorities.

• The International Olympics Committee tested both athletes for performance enhancement, as they do all athletes, and found them fully eligible to compete in the 2024 games.
• Even if the IBA testing results were accurate (and we don’t know if they were), “higher levels of testosterone” and “genetic variations” are NOT proof that someone is trans.

If every single cisgender woman around the world were tested for testosterone levels and sex hormones, many of them would be surprised to learn that they would also “fail” a test like the one given by the IBA.

Cisgender women can have “unusually” high testosterone.

People may be genetically intersex (genes that are neither XX nor XY) but not know it simply because they have never been genetically tested and show no outer signs of being intersex.

Approximately 1–2 people in 100 are intersex, although what that means can vary significantly. It could mean that a person has a natural genetic variation where the person’s chromosomes are neither XX nor XY. These variations include people who have XXY, XO (only one X chromosome), or cells in their bodies that can be XX or XY. Alternatively, it could simply mean that the person’s external genitalia are too ambiguous to know whether they are a vulva and a clitoris or a penis and testes. Lastly, it could mean that the person’s internal reproductive organs and hormones are not easily identifiable as male or female.

Simply being intersex does not give an “advantage” over cisgender women in sports.

Some people may live their entire lives without ever knowing they are intersex. Penalizing athletes who have lived their entire lives as cisgender girls and women for having a genetic variation they didn’t know about and that confers no athletic advantage seems deeply unfair.

• Cisgender elite athletes can and do change their bodies in fundamental ways to enhance their performance, but no one considers these methods to be “unfair.”

One example is “hypoxic” training at high altitude levels — or in conditions meant to simulate high altitude with low oxygen. When it became apparent that Kenyan runners from the Rift Valley were dominating marathons, other runners sought to replicate their results by following their lifestyles, including running at high altitude. In one study, elite runners improved their 3000m times by over 5 seconds after hypoxic training because it increases an athlete’s number of red blood cells, which allows their blood to carry more oxygen.

So why should hormone therapy for trans athletes — a process that can often lower their performance rather than raise it — be a problem?

Lionel Messi, the GOAT of soccer, received hormone therapy when he was young for his endocrine disorder — specifically to help him advance his soccer career chances — but this has never been challenged as an “unfair advantage” that should disqualify Messi from competing at every elite international level in soccer.

• MANY athletes have “genetic variations” that give them an advantage in sports.

Michael Phelp’s unusual body construction, from his “large wingspan” to his incredibly flexible ankles, are part of the reason he excels in swimming.

Britney Griner is nearly a foot taller than the average WNBA player. That’s an “advantage” she received genetically.

Kenyan runners may also have genetic advantages conferred by generations of living in the Rift Valley. Scientists are still trying to determine if genetics plays a factor in their dominance in marathons.

Why are these genetic variations accepted without question, but other, natural variations that result in different sex gene combinations and higher testosterone levels in cisgender women “controversial”?

• Meanwhile, no one is outraged over the trans man who competed — and lost — in women’s boxing.

Filipino boxer Hergie Bacyadan made history this year as the first openly trans man to compete in the Olympics. He was defeated on Wednesday when Chinese cisgender woman boxer Li Quan trounced him with a final score of 5–0 over three rounds.

Yet this news has not dominated social media over the past two days.

• The false stories about these women athletes “really being trans” is being pushed by right-wing media and prominent transphobic voices like Riley Gaines and Libs of TikTok founder Chaiya Raichik because one party is running this year on an explicitly anti-trans platform as part of their usual scapegoating get-out-the-vote tactics. (See also: immigration.)

Notably, this is also the party running on a platform of taking away women’s abortion rights, ending no-fault divorce, and banning birth control while advocating that women drop out of the workforce and devote their lives to raising children and keeping house.

Indeed, every attack on trans women’s rights ends up restricting the rights and denigrating the authority of cisgender women over their own bodies. When “woman” becomes a narrowly defined category controlled by authorities rather than women ourselves, inevitably cisgender women suffer as well as trans women.

Be smarter than your average bigot. Stand up for the rights of these two women athletes. Because this is exactly where transphobia leads: excluding MORE women — including cisgender women — from sports.

My writing on Medium is always FREE to access! I am brown, queer, and disabled, and I also am a community organizer. Remember you can support my work directly via Patreon, or buy yourself an original-design t-shirt from my store. Thanks for reading! Shares are also deeply appreciated.