Trans-identifying males have begun competing — and winning — in women’s sports such as cyclocross, skateboarding, and disc golf.
Veteran triathlete Caroline Wilson beamed as she crossed the finish line at the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii in November. A “Save Women’s Sports” banner was draped across her back.
“Doing what I can!!!!,” she tweeted at the time.
Wilson, who has completed the renowned race 14 times and made it to the championship on three occasions, said she felt compelled to carry the flag after the World Triathlon Corporation, which manages Ironman, released a policy allowing male entrants to compete against women in the professional division, as long as they reduce their testosterone to a certain level.
With a doctorate in physical therapy and a bachelor’s degree in biology, Wilson knows well the physical differences between men and women — and understands the impracticality of trying to eliminate those differences through hormone treatment.
“It’s a joke. Just because someone has dropped their testosterone for a year or two does not negate the changes that have occurred before and during puberty,” Wilson told National Review. “I would be banned from the sport if I showed up with the testosterone levels that they have in their blood.”
When most people think of the movement to preserve sex-separated sports, they call to mind high-profile controversies in school and collegiate events such as swimming, volleyball, and track and field. Outside K–12 education and the university, female professional and amateur athletes such as cyclists, boxers, and skateboarders are also fighting to protect their arenas from male interference. Instead of a local school board or Title IX, however, they are beholden to unresponsive presiding bodies that have, in many cases, imposed policies that deny them a fair playing field, participants across various independent sports told National Review.
At the top of the hierarchy in the cycling world is the International Olympic Committee, followed by the Swiss Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). Rather than issue a firm judgment on transgender inclusion, the IOC has repeatedly passed the buck to the UCI and other sporting bodies on gender eligibility regulations.
“Last year, the IOC dropped the ball and punted. It decided to leave it up to the international federations (IFs) to look at this issue and self-govern about whether they think it’s fair or not,” retired Olympian bicycle racer Inga Thompson told National Review.
When asked for comment, the IOC defended its deference to the IFs, linking to its Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex-Variations which offers guidance to IFs without being mandatory. The IOC assured it developed the framework “following an extensive consultation with athletes and stakeholders concerned,” noting that the organization is “not in a position to issue regulations that define eligibility criteria for every sport, discipline or event across the very different national jurisdictions and sport systems.”
The IOC framework’s first pillar is “Inclusion,” stating that “everyone, regardless of their gender identity, expression and/or sex variations should be able to to participate in sport safety and without prejudice.” While it advises sports organizations to issue criteria that creates confidence that certain athletes don’t unfairly dominate within a category, the framework puts the onus on objecting females to demonstrate that transgender females pose that problem.
“Until evidence determines otherwise, athletes should not be deemed to have an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status,” it reads.
In June, the UCI tightened its hormone requirements for trans-identifying competitors, halving the maximum permitted plasma testosterone level from 5 nanomoles per liter to 2.5 nanomoles per liter and extending the transition period from one to two years.
“But we have over a dozen peer-reviewed scientific studies that show that no amount of testosterone suppression mitigates the advantage of just being born male,” Thompson added. The IOC determined that “it’s more important to have inclusion than it is to have fairness for women,” she said.
Besides placing in the Olympics, Thompson has earned titles in world championships, five national championships, and the Tour de France, which also reports to the UCI. During her active riding years, she worked with the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA), an international professional riders’ association recognized by the UCI. In early 2022, the CPA ran a survey which found that over 90 percent of professional female cyclists opposed the inclusion of male athletes in women’s races.
The petition was submitted to the UCI, which ignored it, Thompson alleged.
“There should have been a study that conclusively showed that it was fair for the transgender women to come in, instead of letting the transgender women come in and then making the women prove that it’s not fair,” she said.
In their application of the rules, the governing bodies sometimes unintentionally concede that the biological distinctions between men and women matter deeply. For instance, Thompson noted that the UCI’s testosterone limits apply only to elite, professional women’s races, suggesting that restrictions are necessary at the top levels of the sport to prevent male entrants from dominating the women. But, Thompson said, this rule effectively discriminates against women in lower categories, in which men are allowed to compete solely on the basis of their identifying as transgender.
“They’re not tested, and they don’t have to show proof that their testosterone levels have dropped. What’s happening is that the grassroots development of women is suffering because a lot of these transgender women self-identify,” Thompson said. As a result, the amateur categories in cycling races are seeing reduced female participation, she said.
“The women are discouraged and they’re walking away,” she added. The UCI did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Transgender intrusion is also threatening professional female categories within combat sports like mixed martial arts (MMA), precision sports like disc golf, and action sports like skateboarding.
In September, Natalie Ryan, the first trans woman to win at the elite level of disc golf, won a second elite series title at the Professional Disc Golf Association’s MVP Open in Massachusetts, beating Estonia’s Kristin Tattar.
The World Flying Disc Federation, an international sports federation recognized by the IOC that oversees frisbee sports, allows transitioning men to compete in the female category if they show via two blood tests a testosterone level below 10 nanomoles per liter for at least one year prior to the first competition as well as during the competition, according to a policy implemented in 2018. Trans applicants must submit to an evaluation and present laboratory reports. The revised policy will be effective January 1, 2023.
The language is particularly accommodative of trans-identifying athletes, however, declaring that “any reported discriminatory actions based on gender identity” will be investigated and offenders will be sanctioned when appropriate, exposing competitors who disagree with male participation to potential punishment.
When asked for comment, the WFDF said it rejects that interpretation, stating, “we strive to protect our transgender athletes by creating clear guidelines with minimally invasive requirements” for TUE [therapeutic use exemption] submission as stipulated by the World Anti Doping Agency.
The rules vary from organization to organization. Another global governing body of disc golf, the Professional Disc Golf Association, has a much higher hormone-therapy requirement, which will take effect in January. It mandates a testosterone level of 2 nanomoles per liter for at least two years prior to the PDGA event, exhibited by at least three blood tests.
Transgender competition in cyclocross is more likely to slip under the radar, Thompson said, because it’s not an Olympic event, although it falls under UCI jurisdiction. “It doesn’t get a lot of emphasis because there isn’t development of elite athletes,” she said. But transgender encroachment into the women’s division is ongoing.
Earlier this month, trans-identifying man Austin Killips displaced 43 women in the UCI Elite Women Race competition on the first day of the Northampton International Cyclocross, which involves biking on diverse terrain and carrying a bicycle over obstacles, often in adverse weather conditions.
Female skateboarders also can’t depend on sponsors to advocate for them, Taylor Silverman told National Review. In fall 2021, after winning two women’s qualifiers in Michigan, the amateur skateboarder learned she would be competing against a man in the Cornerstone contest, which is hosted by Red Bull in Lincoln, Neb.
Silverman, who’s been skating for eleven years, placed second in the tournament, displaced by a trans-identifying male competitor named Lillian Gallagher. At that event and its prerequisites, Gallagher raked in $5000 in awards, including $1000 in qualifiers, $3000 in finals, and $1000 in best trick — “prize money meant for the female athletes,” Silverman complained in a May Instagram post that went viral.
“At least school sports have Title IX protections,” which can ostensibly be wielded to prevent gender-based discrimination in sports, Silverman said. In skateboarding, “we rely on the sponsors and organizers to protect us and they’re failing us completely,” she said.
In response to the public outrage triggered by Silverman’s testimony, Red Bull canceled the Cornerstone contest entirely instead of creating new guidelines to safeguard the women’s sector or carve out a trans space, she said. While organizers of large contests haven’t provided much assurance, smaller skate parks have reached out to Silverman and said, “We won’t allow this at our park,” she claimed. Pro skater Rodney Mead, who started the Florida Amateur Skate League, reportedly told Silverman that his series won’t allow male participation in women’s events.
“There’s also contact and combat sports being impacted by this,” Silverman said. Red Bull did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Silverman mentioned the case of Fallon Fox, the first MMA fighter to declare a transgender identity, who allegedly participated in two fights before revealing his history as a man. In an infamous 2014 match, Fox brutally pummeled his female opponent. American fighter Tamikka Brents lasted just over two minutes against Fox’s raw masculine strength until the referee blew the whistle to end the contest.
Brents suffered a fractured skull after repeated blows, sending her to the hospital for emergency treatment for a concussion and a broken orbital bone, requiring seven staples in the head, according to WhoaTV.
“I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. . . . I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right. Her grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch,” Brents told the outlet in 2014.
Some strides have been made in MMA. In September, the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation hosted a conference on transgender policy for its member federations and invitees from across combat sports. Since 2021, the organization has had a provisional policy prohibiting transgender participation in “existing male and female competition categories on a safety basis.” The IMMAF recognized that capping testosterone levels is insufficient to equalize the fighting ring for female-designated events.
“The scientific evidence currently available is compelling enough to prevent Transgender athletes from competing at IMMAF Competitions because the risks of injury and unfair competition are too great. . . . The scientific evidence in relation to the effects of testosterone suppression treatment shows that those effects are not significant enough for IMMAF to permit Transgender athletes to compete at IMMAF Competitions based on testosterone suppression,” the rule states.
The IMMAF is reportedly considering designating the male category “open” or creating new categories to both accommodate trans-identifying individuals and protect the women’s categories.