Opinion: Transgender athletes should be welcome to compete. But competition in women’s sports must also be fair.

Anika Thompson and Lilian Hammond

Thompson is a junior at the University of Oregon and a member of the track team. Hammond is a student at an Oregon high school and member of the track team.

The Oregonian/OregonLive recently published a piece by sports columnist Bill Oram addressing the controversy of a trans female runner from McDaniel High School who won the girls’ 200 meter race at Oregon’s high school track championships (“A transgender teen athlete’s life is not your cause,” May 21). He wrote “We don’t even know how her competitors felt about being thrust into this conversation. This seems to be the most accepting generation of kids ever, but it would be understandable if they are upset.”

In the interest of sharing student-athlete perspectives on this complicated issue, we are writing to let Oram –and more importantly, Oregon residents – know how at least some women feel about having to race against biological males. The state’s policy allowing trans athletes to compete as their asserted gender doesn’t promote the fairness in competition that school sports otherwise try to uphold. Rather, it is unfair to every biological woman competing. And yes, we are upset.

Biological males and females are fundamentally different – and not only after going through puberty. Various studies suggest that cross-sex hormones do not erase advantages of male lung capacity, or muscle mass. Those born male also do not experience menstrual cycles, which can affect athletic performance due to cramps, discomfort and looser joints during menstrual periods. Society has long recognized these biological differences which helps explain why there are separate sports leagues for men and women.

In his column, Oram argues that it’s “important to note that the McDaniel runner only narrowly won the 200 and finished second in her other event. I do not deny that boys and girls have biological differences, but to act like the event was reduced to a lopsided farce is also not accurate.” Oram is incorrect to characterize the transgender runner as “narrowly” winning. Sprints are timed to the millisecond. Her winning time was 23.82 seconds, compared to 24.02 seconds for the second-place finisher. In sprinting competitions, every millisecond counts, so a difference of 0.20 in such a short race is significant. Moreover, the win does not have to be “lopsided” to be unfair. In what other area of society do we justify unfairness by how lopsided the outcome is?

Sports rely on an ethic of fairness in competition, and in fact, Title IX helped usher in revolutionary changes to give women the same opportunity as men to participate in sports. Rules are created and officials enforce the rules, to allow for an even playing field.

The two of us have worked for years, year round to participate at the level we do. That has meant running as much as 50 miles a week in high school, getting up early for hill workouts, lifting weights and making sacrifices big and small in our personal lives for this commitment. While Oram tries to dismiss the possibility that trans female athletes could take top honors across female sports, this very scenario is in fact playing out across the country and can carry real consequences. Taking first, second, or third can have tremendous impact on girls’ scholarship opportunities, scouting chances and – for the 93% of us who will stop competing after high school – personal pride.

So what’s the solution? Oram writes “As for the suggestion that trans athletes should be directed to their own division: That should immediately be dismissed and called out for the bigotry it is. Such a move would only further single out those few trans athletes competing in high school sports and reduce them to a spectacle.” Here, Oram again fails to consider the broader context. Having an open category does not mean that a trans athlete has to race by themselves. Transgender athletes deserve to and should be allowed to compete in sports. Under this kind of proposal, transgender athletes could choose to race with whichever gender they identify, but their scores would be recorded either in a separate “open” category or with their biological sex. This ensures fairness for everyone, while also protecting any individual teen athlete from becoming a “spectacle” as Oram fears, and from the booing that unfortunately occurred at the state championships. This is a version of what World Aquatics, the governing swimming body, has decided to do for the upcoming World Cup in Berlin, and is the solution many barrier-breaking female athletes, such as tennis great Martina Navratilova, have called for.

Perhaps what’s most objectionable, is that Oram believes people who want fair competition “need to grow up and shut up.” If by “everyone” he means women who are losing in sports to biological males, then our answer is “No.” We will not accept the insinuation that we should be labeled “transphobes” or “bigots” from a man who has no stake in this outcome, simply because we want fair competition. Transgender athletes should be welcome to compete, but we will not “grow up and shut up,” when it comes to our right to win a spot on the podium, and to fight for what women have been demanding for centuries: equal representation, equality and a fair playing field.