When I first heard about Laurel Hubbard, the trans woman weightlifter competing in the Commonwealth games this year, it was someone triumphantly announcing that she'd be unable to continue on due to an injury. I decided to do a quick google and soon found that Laurel Hubbard was a "taboo best left alone", created "unfairness", and generally, was controversial enough among the right-wing press to provoke rants in the comments section everywhere I went. While marriage equality is a settled debate, transgender people and trans athletes in particular remain the low-hanging fruit of the LGBTQ community.
Many people say that trans women have an advantage: they're bigger, stronger, have more muscle mass and generally have an advantage over biological women. Others talk about hormones. And some don't even try to mount an argument and just sneer, deliberately using the wrong pronouns to show that they are unbowed and unbroken in the face of left-wing, politically correct oppression.
I can't be the only person who finds it a little weird, or maybe sad, that someone's own personal identity provokes so much distress and hatred in people, but that's beside the point.
The fact is, a lot of these arguments don't really make sense when you apply science to them.
I could spend the whole blog post on why the "science" of transphobia doesn't stack up, but that would take ages, and it's been done before, and actually, it's been done a whole bunch of times. The basic summary is that (1) transitioning actually has a big impact on hormone levels, in some cases making it even harder for trans women to be competitive athletically, and (2) it doesn't make sense to say they have an advantage, since you could say Usain Bolt has a much higher physical ability than all of his competitors, and should therefore be excluded...
So should we just include trans athletes without hesitation? I don't see why not. It's not like someone would transition just to get an athletic advantage anyway – not only would it be a massive expense, they'd quickly become the target of extreme hatred not just as part of the most maligned minority in our society but as a public figure in that group.
For those who aren't sure about the extensive arguments I've linked to (because, of course, who needs facts nowadays?) there's still a middle road forward: sport that incorporates both male and female competitors, but instead creates divisions based on physical characteristics – like in rowing and boxing. It seems reasonable: trans people can be included without any fears (misguided though they are) of physical advantage, and transphobes will be satisfied (until they find something else to complain about).
StandOut's featured reading of the week is included below:
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