Empathy, Ethics & Trans Athletes

Welcome to another Leading with Empathy. In this edition, I am discussing what some might see as a very sensitive topic. I welcome all comments, discussions, and debates. Perspectives are beautiful to share! Abuse, not so much.

Empathy, Ethics & Trans Athletes

NOTE: Please take a few minutes to read the entire piece before replying.?

My daughter loves to swim. At just 5 years old, she is incredibly confident in the water. She is developing strong technique and wants to race the other kids in her class, many of who are older than her, every chance she gets. Her passion and competitiveness hint at a future of swimming carnivals and dedicated training, none of which we will push but certainly support if she desires.

It is with this backdrop that I consider the current questions facing sporting bodies in accepting or not accepting transgender athletes to compete in sports. I don’t want to position this as a virtuous fight for social justice, or a political diatribe. I approach this question with the delicacy and deliberate thoughtfulness that I believe it does deserve.?

From an empathic viewpoint, I see this as a question that has many perspectives. Each of these perspectives shared below is simply my perception or personal views and I’d welcome any additional views that build on, or contradict my own. It is only through listening to the views of others and integrating these ideas while reflecting on our beliefs that we are all able to grow. Refusing to listen to, or consider, alternative views to our own is obstinance and dogmatism.

So, first, let me attempt to consider the perspective of a trans athlete. While I am not one myself, I have competed in sports since I was 6 yrs old and have a highly competitive nature. I would think then that athletes who have or are, transitioning would feel that a sporting pursuit is such a fundamental aspect of their being that not being able to compete would be highly distressing and unfair.

To discover in your own personal development that you do not belong in your genetic body would be incredibly distressing. Then to have to consider the sport you have dedicated your life competing in, the possibility of having to stop competing, forgo all the effort and devotion on account of nothing more than realising your true identity. I can imagine this would be incredibly challenging.

From a different perspective, that of a competitor who has not transitioned. In this case, there is an interesting distinction. While we should be considering any athlete who has not transitioned considering the addition of competitors who have, this is somewhat redundant. The only cases, and I suspect the only we will encounter, will be the concern of natural female athletes competing with trans women.?

Athletes such as Riley Gaines provide detailed and extensive testimony as to the unfairness of advantage that a competitor who, after developing through adolescence and puberty as a male, transitions to become a woman and competes in female sports with a clear and decisive advantage. To clarify this advantage, the competitor Riley has an issue with is, Lia Thomas. Lia was ranked 89th amongst the male competitors before her transition. After, she has now broken dozens of records in the female swimming categories. Indeed, the type of dominance that would typically be seen by a once-in-a-generation athlete such as Mildred Babe Didrikson Zaharias or Billie Jean King.

So, from the empathic position of an athlete such as Riley Gaines. Having trained diligently and relentlessly from her early days, she strives to compete and win. But she believes, and the statistics would support, that Lia has an incredible, and possibly unfair advantage over her rivals. I can imagine the frustration and sense of injustice. Adding to this, if my daughter faced the same situation I can only imagine my own sympathy and frustration for her. While there are some sports where this advantage may be insignificant, research by Roberts, Smalley & Ahrendt (2021) found trans women sustained a 9% advantage over their non-transitioned counterparts even after 12 months of hormone therapy.

How significant is 9%? Considering that most Olympic finals are won by milliseconds, 9% becomes incredibly significant. In the Tokyo Olympics, the difference between the first and last place getter in the Men’s 100m sprint final was just 0.08 seconds. Less than a 1% difference. Now imagine the perspective of the millions of female athletes who are training, striving, and sacrificing daily to reach the pinnacle of their sport. While accepting defeat is a natural part of the sporting endeavour, I can imagine the frustration of it feeling unfair.

The best male athletes have consistently recorded superior performances compared to their female counterparts across the vast majority of sporting disciplines. Indeed, the very reason we split most sporting competitions across gender lines is due to the advantage that genetic males have in terms of muscular density, ligament strength, and cardiovascular fitness. While none of these are universally true, there are many genetic women who are far superior athletes to me for example, at the pinnacle of sports this advantage is dramatic. This is why the sport was split into male and female sports, to account for the clear advantage male athletes had in many sporting endeavours.

So, what to do? Should we deny athletes from finding their true selves to compete in the sports they love? Should we protect the institution of female sport based on the genetic category which was designed to create more fairness in the competition of men and women? Do we need more categories? Do we remove them altogether and simply have open competition?

In facing a situation like this, it is useful to look at the competing fundamental principles that underlie the situation. On one side, there is a principle of allowing people to be their authentic selves and be included in all aspects of society. On the other is a principle of fairness and equity in competitions where natural attributes are of significant advantage.?

In terms of inclusion, there have been great leaps made across most of the world in the modern era. Certainly, there are countries and people who remain intolerant of certain people and continued effort is needed to broaden inclusivity. I don't suggest we declare victory in any way. However, the vast majority of modern society is far more inclusive of people of different races, ages, genders, religions, sexualities, and disabilities. Even in the most inclusive of societies, prejudice, and intolerance remains present. But on the whole, there has been remarkable progress.

Often inclusivity requires changes to existing social structures, either via the repealing of antiquated laws or the creation of additional policies that enable participation that was previously not available. Examples of repealing antiquated laws in Australia are the 1902 change enabling women to vote and the legalisation of same-sex marriage, finally, in 2013. Examples of additions are the Paralympics, which were officially formed in 1960 to enable people with disabilities to compete against each other on a more equitable playing field, and the implementation of the indigenous voice to parliament that is both well overdue and vital to our progress as an inclusive Australia looking to reconcile with our past.

If we look at this purely from an economist perspective, the current question of transgender athletes in sports provides an interesting view. It seems the questions lead to a substantial physical resource advantage, but only in one direction. There are a number of cases now of biological males transitioning to become women who are then competing in sports with considerable advantages. However, there are very few cases of biological females who upon transitioning to become men out-compete in the same way. While there are a number of examples where a trans-man has competed with male athletes, there are no cases of them ascending the rankings in the way Lia Thomas did, nor of smashing records along the way.

So, it appears that some, but not all, transitioning athletes have an advantage carried from their genetics. This brings the second principle into the conversation. Is this advantage fair? The ancient Olympic games had no specific category for female athletes, but since 1900 there have been male and female events to provide greater inclusion for female athletes. In weightlifting, there are different categories based on weight. This is similar to boxing and many other martial arts. It is most prevalent in youth sports where most competitions are organised into age groups to improve equity.?

These different categories have seen changes over the years. The NSW Rugby League even recently held a competition with weight and age divisions. This is in response to the large discrepancies in the physical size of some children compared to the average. These differences might have always existed, but demographics have shifted, and so too has the level of the playing field. We should always be open to developing greater equity where it is needed.

So, in trying to incorporate balance between these two core principles of inclusion and equity, it seems only sensible to offer a logical proposition for enabling both. We simply need additional categories in sports to enable trans athletes to compete fairly. It would seem to be unfair to do otherwise, wouldn’t it? While biological evolution is incredibly slow, social evolution is rapid. The risk to female sports as seen by the cases of statistically significant advantages causes too great a strain on the principle of equity when there is a solution that embraces both equity and inclusion together.

I fully expect that some will disagree and some may agree with the idea but on different grounds. I welcome a sensible discussion on this and any other topic. I owe it to my daughter.

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Thanks again, looking forward to discussions and conversations with you all.

Regards

Daniel