LONDON – An anonymous survey of elite British sportswomen has found that more than 70 per cent are uncomfortable with transgender athletes competing in the female class in sport, while 67 per cent feel uncomfortable about speaking publicly on the issue.
The BBC survey was sent to 615 athletes, including “any applicable transgender athletes”, in 28 sports and 143 responses were received.
Of the athletes who responded, 104 said they felt uncomfortable or very uncomfortable about transgender athletes competing in the female class in their sport. Only 11 said they felt comfortable or very comfortable.
On speaking about the subject, 96 said they felt uncomfortable or very uncomfortable addressing it in public, with some elaborating to the BBC their fears of abuse or being considered discriminatory.
The topic of transgender athletes competing in female categories has been a controversial one in recent years. Global governing bodies for cricket, cycling, athletics, swimming and chess have already tightened their participation rules for transgender players in elite women’s competitions for reasons of fairness.
Some sporting bodies allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sport if they can show reduced levels of testosterone, as suggested in the 2015 guidelines issued by the influential International Olympic Committee (IOC).
But critics of transgender inclusion in women’s sport say that going through male puberty imbues athletes with a huge musculo-skeletal advantage that transition does not mitigate.
LGBT advocacy groups, on the other hand, say that excluding trans athletes amounts to discrimination and that not enough research has been done into the impact of transition on athletic performance.
A group of academics last week published a paper challenging the most recent IOC framework on the inclusion of transgender athletes in sport, saying it did not protect fairness for women nor align with scientific or medical evidence.
The BBC survey comes just as Dutch darts authorities on March 25 confirmed the resignation of two veteran women players, after they refused to compete with a transgender woman in the country’s national team.
Anca Zijlstra and Aileen de Graaf said they were quitting because they no longer wanted to represent the Netherlands alongside Noa-Lynn van Leuven.
“They do not want to play in the Dutch team with a transgender person,” the Dutch Darts Association (NDB) said.
The NDB defended van Leuven, the current women’s world No. 6, saying it was “known to us that she has completed her transition from a man to a woman and that her gender identity is female”.
“She meets all the requirements and therefore, according to a directive on gender and sex-diverse persons, is eligible to play in the women’s category,” it added. REUTERS, AFP
