Finally complete, after months of research, is my 8-part series of the history, medicine, science, politics, and legal aspects of transgender and intersex persons participating in sports. Most importantly, I present several deconstructions and refutations of the usual arguments made by those who want to limit, restrict, or even ban transgender and intersex athletes.
The entire article is more than 14,000 words, and cites 35 references. I think it could be a useful one to throw out during online debates and discussions to shut down the arguments of the haters. I will list all of the sections of the article below, but it’s recommended that you read everything in order.
An executive summary of the findings comprises the following:
- As human beings, intersex and transsexual athletes have every right to be included in athletic events.
- Due to the rarity of their conditions, “separate but equal” competitions are highly impractical and discriminatory.
- Current requirements for ensuring that hormonal advantages do not come into play are sufficient. In fact, these requirements may be highly unfair to younger athletes.
- Sex-based differences in body morphology, where they occur, are often outweighed by the devastating impact of hormone replacement therapy on the body.
- That cases where men have faked being women for sports competition are vanishingly rare.
- That the possibility of creating “fake transsexuals” for unfair competition seems ludicrous.
- Despite all fear and dread, transsexual and intersex athletes have never dominated any sport, and show no hints of doing such at this time, in any context.
- That transsexual and intersex athletes have been consistently the subjects of abuse and discrimination for more than a century of organized sports.
In short, only an extremely small risk to fair sports competition is entailed by the welcome inclusion of transgender and intersex athletes.
Part 1 – Introduction and Early History
Part 2 – The Cruelest Test
Part 3 – Post-Richards to the Stockholm Consensus
Part 4 – Current Events
Part 5 – Let’s Get Physical
Part 6 – Why, oh Why, Must it be This Way?
Part 7 – Are There Any Cases Where an Advantage Seems Possible?
Part 8 – Final Summary and References