Context: The Supreme Court is currently debating whether or not trans athletes should be able to compete in girls and women’s sports. SCOTUS is hearing a case challenging state-level laws that ban trans women and girls from competing in sports that align with their gender identity. The current case involves two different arguments involving trans female athletes who were barred from competing on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
The two cases raise debates about whether or not trans women athletes have biological advantages over cisgender female athletes. Much of the debate centers around the differences between male and female puberty and how it impacts athleticism long after one’s teenage years, as well as differences in bone density, muscle mass, and lung capacity among cisgender male and cisgender female athletes.
However, trans athletes have been competing in women’s sports at both the collegiate and professional level for decades and have more or less, been middle-of-the-pack athletes. Take Fallon Fox, the MMA fighter who never won a major fight in the women’s category. Natalie Fahey, a former swimmer who competed for Southern Illinois University, began transitioning during her collegiate career, and, in the middle of her transition, still only edged her female counterparts while competing as an exhibition swimmer. Similarly, Juniper Eastwood, a former distance runner for Montana University, saw a similar trajectory. Although she won a conference title in the 1,500m in the women’s category, her 3,000m, 5,000m, and 6,000m times all dramatically decreased, edging her out of even placing at meets.
There’s also Lia Thomas, the Penn swimmer who won a national championship in 2022. However, Thomas also placed fifth in other events, tying with cisgender athlete Riley Gaines, who has used her loss to become a political pundit in the aftermath of her collegiate career. Johanna Harper, a masters runner who competed in the women’s category as a trans athlete, and who now studies trans biology, also noted that her times didn’t improve dramatically as was once predicted, and that, upon looking at the USATF age-grading tables, realized “that I was just as competitive as a 48-year-old woman as I had been as a 46-year-old man.” The British Journal of Sports Medicine, which Harper contributes to, has also published several studies challenging or disputing hormonal advantages of transwomen in women’s sports, and suggests that longer periods between the start of hormone replacement and return to athletic competition in women’s sports to ensure that testosterone-related advantages are mitigated.
So, in spite of common belief and sexist messaging, there is compelling evidence to overturn state bans on trans participation in women and girls sports.The policy implications will likely complicate the outcome of the current SCOTUS case.
Policy Analysis:
Title IX was a groundbreaking legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex at federally-funded educational institutions. The majority of high schools and colleges in the United States. Athletic programs fall under Title IX because they are also recipients of federal funding and are seen as extensions of their overarching educational programs.
Title IX is a fairly straightforward law, but the verbiage used in it raises some questions about the extent of its coverage. Particularly, the word “sex” as used in Title IX clashes with its application in other areas of law. For instance, Title VII, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in the workplace, uses the term “sex” differently than in Title IX. In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court ruled that in the workplace, the term “sex” also applies to sexual orientation, which extends more protections to LGBTQ individuals beyond just sex assigned at birth. Past Democratic administrations have treated “sex” as broader, but its broader definition is only legally codified in Title VII.
The term “sex,” as it is used under the Trump administration, is related to biology only, and keeping “men” out of women’s sports has been a huge selling point of the Trump administration. Under a conservative-majority Supreme Court, it is likely to stay that way. The shifting legal interpretation of the term “sex” combined with a lopsided SCOTUS, almost guarantees that trans rights in sport will face an uphill battle moving forward.