A 16-year-old Colorado girl tells NR that it’s ‘degrading’ to be forced to compete against males.
Of all the women’s sports that have been invaded by men in recent years, rock climbing is perhaps the most captured by gender ideology. Attracting earthy nonconformists, climbing prides itself on being welcoming and judgment-free. Many climbing gyms fly LGBT flags and have a trans-inclusion page on their websites.
USA Climbing, the national governing body for the sport, released a transgender-participation policy in September which required that males artificially lower their testosterone levels before competing against females — and then quickly walked it back under pressure from trans activists.
Under the initial policy, eligibility was dependent on males maintaining reduced testosterone levels of less than five (5) nmol/L for at least twelve months ahead of and during competition. The policy required a statement of gender declaration, and the submission of official laboratory reports of the athlete’s testosterone levels to the USA Climbing Medical Review Panel.
Prior to the new rule, the organization had allowed athletes simply to enter the category of their preferred gender. The only prerequisite was documentation of their identity, such as with a doctor’s letter, and agreement to adhere to International Federation of Sport Climbing rules.
Backlash from the transgender community erupted soon after the September policy –two years in the making– was announced. A petition started by the group Trans Climbers Belong garnered over 11,000 signatures between November and January.
“Under the new policy, USA Climbing requires all transgender athletes and their families to take actions that are expensive, intrusive, and often unobtainable,” the group said. “Historically, USA Climbing has supported trans athletes’ participation with inclusive policies that ensure access to the sport, and transgender athletes have participated without conflict.”
In response to the criticism, USA Climbing suspended the policy, opening up a survey for public comment through January 14. The policy is still on hold. Trans Climbers Belong, an activist group fighting against the imposition of any constraints on male participation in female climbing, recently announced on its website that it is now in “active conversation” with USA Climbing about a new policy.
Regardless of where USA Climbing comes down on the testosterone-suppression issue, it’s now clear that female climbers like 16-year-old Chloe Dodd, who competes on USA Climbing’s youth circuit, will be forced to compete against males.
Based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the Dodds have cheered on their daughter for the past seven years as she has conquered new peaks in the sport, qualifying for nationals six times. As Chloe sets her sights on collegiate competition, she’s confronted with a new obstacle that she never saw coming when she started out: a male opponent.
The male advantage in climbing is obvious, the Dodds say, you just have to look at the distance between holds on a climbing wall to understand.
Dodd was at a divisional rock-climbing competition a few years ago when two girls just barely missed qualifying for nationals because they were too short to reach the last hold on the wall.
“We’ve seen that happen where they’ve set a climb that’s, like, impossible if you’re a certain height,” Chloe’s mother Amy told National Review.
“Climbing is a power sport,” Dodd said, and men typically have more power.
The results of a recent tournament in Fort Collins, Co. that drew advanced climbers were particularly eye-opening to Dodd. The Battleship Bounty, hosted by Whetstone Climbing Gym, is an old-school repoint competition, where the same boulders are set for male and female athletes for the qualifying round.
While the female and male qualifier scores are comparable, Dodd said, the discrepancy is huge when the gender-based ranking is done. Adrienne Clark, who is on the U.S. women’s national climbing team, scored lower than several regional 15-16 year old boys, Dodd noted. Brooke Raboutou, one of the 2 female climbing Olympians in 2021, also participated in the event.
“I don’t know if Adrienne would do particularly well at youth nationals in MYA (male youth A category, 15-16 yr olds),” Dodd said. “Brooke was better but still was outscored by several men I don’t know.”
“She would never make the men’s national team, much less a men’s IFSC final,” Dodd added. ” She wouldn’t have even made finals at Whetstone’s comp. She made every single female boulder final in an IFSC event she participated in last year with 1 gold and 2 bronze last year. She placed 5th in the Olympics, but would have placed 9th in men’s at a this Whetstone comp.”
Asked about female climbers like Chloe, who object to being forced to compete against males, USA Climbing said it “continues to have ongoing dialogue” with the “entire climbing community.”
“We plan to continue the engagement process until we have gathered sufficient information to make informed decisions, then we will move forward with a revised policy,” the organization added.
“The guiding principle across the process was to try and find this very difficult balance between equity and inclusion and fairness on the field of play,” Marc Norman, the CEO of USA Climbing since 2018, told Climbing magazine. “In hindsight, parts of the policy went too far.”
Trans Climbers Belong demanded that the testosterone limitations be eliminated, “so that it does not mandate requirements of transgender athletes that are not likewise placed on their cisgender peers.” The group also asked that USA Climbing consult with transgender and nonbinary athletes throughout the policy-making process.
“It was our impression that the policy got put on pause because there was so much opposition to biological males competing with females,” Dodd said. “But it turns out that it’s been backlash from the transgender community saying that the new policy is excluding them, and it’s too harsh, it’s too expensive, it’s too emotionally taxing.”
Transgender climbers have been calling for boycotts of USA Climbing. A USA Climbing coach recently resigned, alleging discrimination against transgender athletes.
Dodd got involved when USA Climbing asked for feedback on the survey. She sent an email to the climbing gym her daughter attends, reminding parents to submit their input. Dodd attached the recent Competition report from the Independent Women’s Forum and the Independent Women’s Law Center detailing the scientific and legal arguments against men in women’s sports.
In a reply to the parents of climbers, the gym blasted Dodd’s email, with the coach writing, “I would like to emphatically state that the opinions, discussion, and language presented in that document DO NOT reflect or align with the values and expectations” of their program. Citing Trans Climbers Belong, the email recommended parents review their “helpful information.”
“I want to acknowledge that exposure to the opinions and language contained in the distributed document had the potential to cause harm to some individuals,” the email said, urging those who might have been negatively impacted to reach out to the gym for support.
The gym did not immediately respond to request for comment.
While the facility has taken a defiant trans-accommodating stance, the girls on Chloe’s team reject the policy permitting men to compete against them.
“I talked to a lot of the girls on my team and some of them are very pro-transgender I would say, but they all agreed with me,” Chloe said. “They said, ‘I really don’t want to have to compete against a biological male.’”
USA Climbing has comprehensively woven gender ideology into its code of conduct, even outside tournaments. As a result, it has fallen into inconsistencies and potentially unsafe territory.
The organization’s gender-inclusion guidelines even suggest that coaches assign boys who identify as female to share hotel rooms with girls on climbing trips.
The organization recommends staff event organizers use hotels, restaurants, and suppliers that are LGBTQ and/or BIPOC owned, as well as post “inclusive signage that provides educational material, such as why tampons are placed in the men’s bathroom and why we put pronouns on name tags.”
USA Climbing’s bathroom protocol is for trans athletes to use the restroom or locker room they’re comfortable with.
“Note: Should a cisgender person remain uncomfortable about sharing toilets and facilities with a trans person, it is the cisgender person who can seek out alternate arrangements and not the trans person,” the guidelines state. “All too often, accommodation is at the expense of the trans person when the reverse is required if trans discrimination is to be avoided.”
The document also urges against using the wrong pronouns and informing teammates, parents, and judges of a person’s gender identity without their consent.
In response to a frequently asked question in the guidelines, “Won’t transgender women have an unfair advantage over non-transgender women?,” USA Climbing says, “It is important to place this fear in context.”
“Transgender girls who medically transition at an early age do not go through a male puberty, and therefore their participation in athletics as girls does not raise the same potential equity concerns that arise when transgender women transition after puberty,” USA Climbing stated.
However, given the latest policy freeze, USA Climbing will technically have no way to test a man’s hormone levels and therefore ascertain whether he has undergone medical transition.
USA Climbing’s refusal to prioritize fair competition for women and girls has been disheartening to the Dodd family.
“I think about it like competing against my male teammates, which I practice with every day,” Chloe said. “If I were trying this climb, and I can’t do the move, it’s really hard for me, and then one of my male teammates goes and does it first try.”
Activists with Trans Climbers Belong, such as transgender-identifying male coach Kristen Fiore, have attempted to complicate the issue by arguing that climbing is already a subjective sport, with competitors bringing diverse differences in “hand size, shin length, height, and ape index.”
“There are advantages and disadvantages we can’t change, and those we don’t even try to,” Fiore wrote in a November letter to USA Climbing opposing the September policy. “One of the beauties of our sport is finding ways to succeed with the different bodies we have. And if you’re thinking to yourself, ‘well, a person can’t help it if they have big hands.’ You’re right. I urge you to use that logic when considering inclusion of trans climbers.”
But it is obvious how much harder the male climbs are than the female climbs, Chloe said.
“Especially in the strength aspect, really overhung powerful climbs, especially are where you see the biggest difference,” she said. “Because the guys are stronger, have bigger wingspan, and can do it a lot easier than we can.”
Even now as a teenager, Chloe can sense how this unprecedented regression in sports could derail a woman’s athletic career.
“I play two other sports,” she said. “Being a three-sport athlete, the amount of effort and work I put in, just to potentially be beat by a mediocre male is degrading.”