Transgender competitors
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.Comments about this discussion:
Started
The current Rulebook has no provision to cover transgender competitors. I believe we need to add a rule that states the IUF position on transgender riders and against who they can compete so that we ensure fair competition for all participants.
Examples of other sporting organisations rules and policies for transgender competitors:
https://www.transathlete.com/policies-by-organization
Comment
This is an extremely difficult topic to handle because
1. We have no ability to test or uphold any specific requirements we supposedly try and enforce
2. much more research needs to be done to show that maintaining a hormone level at a certain point reduces any gains a person may have from male to female transition
3. There are a number of other factors that (I am fairly sure) hormone replacement after puberty wont alter such as height and bone structure which may still come into play for various sports.
Whats the answer? No idea.
Comment
Australian Football League created a gender diversity policy in August 2018 that uses not only hormones but also factors such as height, weight, vertical jump, bench press max, and more as indicators of eligibility. Because size are factors in this policy, it is not an ideal policy.
There is a reason the Australian Football League uses more than just "hormones" in their assessment. Height and strength play a large role in this contact and I am not sure having hormones under a certain level reduces the birth gender advantages.
Picture of male to female athlete who had hormone levels that meet requirements but was disallowed based on the other factors.
https://images.performgroup.com/di/library/sportal_com_au/99/95/hannah-mouncey_1r2nuyh8vs8951py0z3jlsfagf.jpg?t=372265980&quality=100
Luckily unicycling is non contact which reduces the safety issue, but can we confidently say that having your hormones at a certain level will stop a male to female competitor having better strength/power/acceleration than the majority of female competitors. It is likely to effect most track, trials and jumps events.
Comment
Comment
It's a very difficult topic to discuss - even athletics haven't found a good solution for it for more than 30years.
I personally have no clear opinion on that and I think we are not the right people to decide on this.
Comment
Incidentally, our newspaper featured an article today about Caster Semenya, the South-African female athlete who recently lost her appeal against the IAAF decision to rule her out for female competition because of her (naturally occurring) high testosterone level.
My main take-away from the article is that the gender discrimination issue in sports is very complicated. This is also apparent from the link that Mark provided: different sport organisations have significantly different rules.
I think that for now, we as IUF should leave our gender rules as they are.
Comment
Regardless of the difficulties, we should have at least an informal policy.
Not positive about Unicon, but I know at NAUCC we have transgender athletes competing.
I like this statement "a player may register with the gender with which the player identifies".
Another sport does not allow changing again within a four-year period.
Comment
I think that some individualse don't identify with the bipolar male/female genders. They might have a fluid gender identity, or consider themselves as neither male or female.
Comment
I agree with Connie that we should have at least an informal policy. In general, I would also be open for a stricter policy. We don't want to discriminate against any group - both transgender AND female athletes. A vague transgender policy (or a lack of a policy) could be interpreted as a discrimination against females athletes.
Klaas, the issue you raise could be solved by adding the word 'most' at the end of Connie's suggestion. Maybe we could also add a clause appealing to the athlete's fairness.
"a player may register with the gender with which the player identifies most and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors".
Comment
For transgenders (which is the original topic of this discussion), something like Connie's rule or Ben's modification of it might work.
But transgender is just one facet of the total gender spectrum.
Besides, who is going to judge "unfair advantage"?
Suppose we accept Ben's rule. Now, suppose we have a competitor who looks like a male. Perhaps this competitor IS a male but who can tell? (And what's the definition anyway?)
If this person registers as a female, we have to assume that he/she identifies most with the female gender (because we assume that he/she knows the rule and adheres to it).
If this person goes on to win amongst females, does he/she have an unfair advantage?
An example from athletics: I mentioned Caster Semenya already. Does she have an unfair advantage from her high testosterone? Experts have thought about this very hard and still there is no consensus.
I feel that creating even an informal policy should not be taken lightly.
Comment
I think it makes sense to have a policy that can be put in the rulebook, even if it's vague. I think we can still make it clear that it's up to the IUF board to do further work on the issue (both in terms of figuring out where there may be an advantage and if there are other instances where events need to be more inclusive). As has been pointed out other sports are also grabling with this. As far as advantages I think it greatly depends on the competition and in some competitions it might not even matter and personal preference can be the guide.
Comment
I agree that we must address this. It's going to come up, probably sooner rather than later.
This discussion is similar to one we had about doping, many years ago. That discussion boiled down to "Are we going to do any form of testing?" "No." Okay, then whatever we may say about it will have no teeth, so it can only be a recommendation. At that time I would joke "Dope all you want" but not in a serious way; more in a way to say why would you do that? This is not going to affect your future career in sports or anything.
At Unicon 16, the event was run in cooperation with the rules of an Italian sports federation the did have doping rules. In order to have their recognition, which I assume came along with funding, we would have to abide by those rules. Were we going to do any testing? No. But as the Freestyle Artistic Director, I had a handful of riders or their parents who brought me copies of medication prescriptions, which I duly "filed" and kept track of.
The relevance to that is what is the IUF willing to do? We are not going to ask competitors to show us their junk. We are not going to ask for a stack of medical records (possibly in extremely rare cases). We are not going to delve into the person's past history of gender identification. With all that off the table, I would recommend a "light" approach, similar to the above, centered on the core idea that riders can compete using the gender ID they use in the rest of their lives. In other words, they can't switch just for uni competition. If the person has a photo ID, we should use the gender specified therein, or if they are in a place of transition, our binary choice should be to err on the side of testosterone. In other words, to not disadvantage the female gender.
I assume we will make a binary choice; we don't plan on having a third gender available in the near future, so a person must compete as one sex for all events entered.
How to write that? I recommend keeping it simple; here's a take based on what's above:
"A rider may register using the gender with which that rider identifies primarily. If this poses a question of undue advantage over other members of that gender, further study may be needed."
Behind that, if/when it gets challenged, must be our larger policy, but I don't think that needs to be in the book. By the time we need to use it, we may have learned more about these situations.
Comment
What does further study may be needed mean? And how can we judge unfair advantage?
I agree that we need to have something in the rulebook, at NAUCC we have had three cases of transgender competitors that I know of. Could we just keep it really simple with Connie's proposed wording? This means that we have a clear statement but it leaves room for more development later on. I just changed the word player to rider.
"a rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies"
Comment
If anything go with
"a rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies"
It is unfair to female athletes to compete against male->female athletes but if the majority of the females voting here support it then who am I to argue.
Comment
Implementing a rule concerning transgender would be very difficult and it will most likely never be good enough, having many loopholes. For example, with "a rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies" - what's stopping a male rider saying "this year, I'm going to identify myself as female"? It'd be a great achievement for someone to be the male champion one Unicon, and then the female champion the next. This would not only be unfair for female competitors, but also for male competitors. Enforcing such a rule would require passport checks at registration...
Comment
As a general rule simple is better. Unfortunately, our Rulebook always gets bigger and more complex! :-)
My suggested text attempts to say that if we run into an example of, for example, a total, testosterone-sweating dude who identifies as female. At the very least, we should insist that this is that rider's "everyday" gender preference, preferably with a photo ID to match. If the person is still in transition and/or they don't have a matching ID, this creates a gray area where somebody has to decide. And that gets way too "gray" to try to legislate in the Rulebook.
Ultimately, what we publish should merely hint that there is possibility of appeal if somebody believes they are not getting fair treatment. How to deal with that appeal? I guess similarly to how the larger world of sport has done this; on a case-by-case basis and not very well.
Virtually every unlikely scenario we have thought of in the development of rules over the years has come true. This will eventually come up as an issue as well.
Comment
I am impressed how the subject developed... I don't feel able to comment on gender things as this is completely alien subject for me. I just leave some few words here:
If the person was born as female and think is a male than most likely has disadvantage of competing against other males. I understand that transition from female to male is with taking some testosterone which is a doping substance and that creates problems with anti doping.
In contrary.
If the person was born male and think is a female, than most likely has advantage of competing against females. Why not to support this person to compete in male category. The sport is fun because of challenges. Want to be a better sport(wo)man? Compete against males! Not every women has a chance to fight against men, even if they want to.
Comment
This is a very challenging topic - this being said: I definitely think that we should have an informal policy for it in place, even if it won't be perfect.
I like the idea of appealing to people's fairness and I would also like to see a sentence that would allow for "further investigation" (whatever this might be, I don't think we need to specify it) for the extreme case that a male would register in the female category (where he would clearly have an advantage) and might even win medals or World Champion titles.
I know this is highly unlikely as I generally believe that unicycling is a very fair sport, but in case it happens it would be good to have something in the rulebook to refer to
Comment
Caution: Every time we say something is "highly unlikely" it usually ends up happening within a few years. I can think of lots of examples, but most are from long ago. One instance ended up with people hauling up a large heavy television set to the top of the track grandstand (only place with electricity), so we could plug in a video camera (this was around 1994), to watch a photo-finish of a 100m race that would determine the overall Track champion at that year's Nationals.
Also we must be cautious when we say "fair" because in rule-making, its only true meaning is that the rules get followed. But it's our job to make those rules. Fair is a concept that differs based on point of view. Therefore, our rules must strive to be impartial whenever possible.
This applies even in this area of gender. "Further investigation" is a nice, flexible statement we can have, to let people know "more can or will be done" for areas that aren't clear.
I think for any statement regarding gender, we must be specific about how we determine "the gender with which the player identifies". This must be specific. The first layer of this should be the person's photo ID. But this won't cover people who are transitioning; often you don't get to change your ID until other things have changed. So if the person's identified gender does not match their ID, we should decide how they prove to us this is their actual, real-life, working gender.
That should cover the majority of cases, and narrow down the "gray area" quite a bit.
Comment
I don't like the terms 'further investigation' or 'further study'- it sounds intrusive. It could be 'further consideration' by the IUF board, based on a set of guidelines as to how 'unfair advantage' is determined. This could be discipline specific- for instance, in the 10km standard class, there is negligible difference between M and F athletes.
Ben's suggestion would be the most workable:
"a player may register with the gender with which the player identifies most, and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors"
'Unfair advantage' is subjective, but it leaves it open for the IUF to interpret what this means, if and when the situation arises. It could be a biochemical cutoff, but we are not limited or reliant on this.
Comment
I tend to agree with Ken and Ben. I would rather the possibility to assess "unfair advantage" if it seems that it may exist.
Comment
The only thing we can check is the ID so i would vote for going with the gender that's on the ID. If someone has written down divers as gender i would say that person can choose whatever gender the person prefers.
Comment
I think that checking which gender is written in a competitors passport, hormonal facts etc. would seem and be highly discriminating of the person who see themselves as transgender, non-binary or otherwise not included in the gender norm.
I'd like to have a rule that goes something like:
-A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies the most. changing gender again within a 6 year period is not allowed.
I think that is very simple rule that both allow people to be different, and forces the competitor to think twice before signing up as a transgender, since they will be forced to compete as the chosen gender for at least 6 years.
Comment
Ken wrote this one:
"a player may register with the gender with which the player identifies most, and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors"
Lasse provided a little more, which if we blend with the first, might look like this:
"Riders may register with the gender with which that individual identifies most, and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors. Changing gender again within a 6-year period is not allowed."
Our first layer of determining gender would be the person's ID, be it passport, driver license or other government-issued documents. If they already have those, there's nothing to worry about as they are legally that gender. In those cases it would not even be an issue unless the person is an extreme case of some sort.
Our second layer can be when a person has multiple IDs that don't match. This is a person in transition, which can take years to complete. In the case of multiple government-issued IDs, we can choose to go by date; if the more recent documents match the person's new gender, that should cover that. But we should reserve the right to question the "strength" of non-government IDs, like a student ID or other lesser types.
The third layer, and where we are mostly likely to have problems, is if the IDs are not up to date with the person. In this case, we could ask for more information about their journey. Statements from community members, teachers, or other objective people, or news coverage, if they have it, can make their case. This would have to be very much on a case-by-case basis; what we publish in the Rulebook should be brief. Something to the effect of "we will work with the individual or the family to reach the best choice for all."
Then there is the wildcard layer; the person who identifies as neither male nor female. Sports are binary, so this might not be an issue, but the person of course has to have a preference, it has to be the same for all events (a core rule that must apply to everyone), and it's only an issue if the person's IDs don't match their choice. If the ID indicates the opposite gender from what they identify as, refer to the third layer. If the ID says "gender fluid" or similar, it doesn't help us determine which is the legal one. I hope there aren't too many of those types of ID out there! I guess that would also refer to the third layer, above.
Comment
First of all. In a transgender policy we can't be talking about "him/her"
so if any, it should go like this:
"Riders may register with the gender with which that individual identifies most, and which will not give the rider an unfair advantage over other competitors. Changing gender again within a 6-year period is not allowed."
But I do not like the part about unfair advantage:
-who are rightfully to judge if a person would have an unfair advantage by competing with the gender the person feel like?
-would unfair advantage be that females generally are more graceful than males, and therefor more likely to win a freestyle competition if they sign up as a male?
-would unfair advantage be, if a very muscular male want to sign up as a female?
-would unfair advantage be, if a very muscular female want to sign up as a male?
Therefore I think that including such rule as "and which will not give the rider an unfair advantage over other competitors." is impossible. and would also take for someone to create a guideline for what would be judged as unfair advantage, or you could expect the host/IUF Board to be targeted with a shitload amount of angry competitors, no mater what the decision would be. Unless the rider is clearly not in favor to win.
What we could add instead was something like, "Any rider who sign up with another gender than stated in their passport should be approved by the Host/IUF"
- that way we make sure, that the host/IUF can overrule someone who would try to change their gender to win or any other highly unlikely situation.
So the whole rule would go like this:
"Riders may register with the gender with which that individual identifies the most. Any rider who sign up with another gender than stated in their passport, should be approved by the Host/IUF. Changing gender again within a 6-year period is not allowed."
Also. We should remember that with a transgender policy we are talking about (if any) extremely few people who it would affect, and probably none who would try to use it to win. so we could add the rule this way, and then evaluate it in the next rulebook committee.
But we should be careful not to discriminate anyone by adding a rule that is to strict, or in other ways doesn't work.
Comment
I still 100% support the line "and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors". I agree we don't want to discriminate against anyone but what about discriminating against female competitors? It is a very delicate subject but its hard to definitively say that the average male to female wont have a serious advantage over the average female.
The average male rider going to female gives them an unfair advantage for almost any event that requires strength and power. Street, High Jump, Long Jump, Trials, 100m sprint, Probably 800m, Most likely to a smaller degree but still significant hockey/basketball (but they compete mixed gender so currently isn't an issue.)
The average female rider going to male MAY give them an unfair advantage in flexibility that could give them an advantage in some freestyle moves over males. (However it could be negated by reduced power.) Generally in olympic sports it is not seen as a benefit to go from female to male which is why the IOC allows these competitors to compete straight away.
-would unfair advantage be that females generally are more graceful than males, and therefor more likely to win a freestyle competition if they sign up as a male?
Gracefulness is not a measurable attribute. If you are talking about flexibility or skinniness then perhaps, I am not aware if freestyle give people more points for having smaller bone structures. Flexibility is a possibility though harder to measure as an obvious advantage compared to strength and power.
-would unfair advantage be, if a very muscular male want to sign up as a female?
For the majority of events definitely.
-would unfair advantage be, if a very muscular female want to sign up as a male?
Depends how much hormone therapy they are taking to become male. If they were taking similar amounts as elite female bodybuilders then they would definitely be stronger than the males as they would be the equivalent of a male doping.
If they were a female to male who wasn't taking crazy amounts of hormones to become male then they generally wouldn't have an advantage. Which is why the IOC allows female to male to compete straight away.
Comment
I agree with Lasse's latest version:
"Riders may register with the gender with which that individual identifies the most. Any rider who sign up with another gender than stated in their passport, should be approved by the Host/IUF. Changing gender again within a 6-year period is not allowed."
Comment
Kirsten's version looks good. If anything, the word "should" should be something more concrete like "shall" or "must". This moves all the complexity of what follows out of the Rulebook, where things must be concrete, to a place where we don't have to rush to figure something out.
In real terms, this rule probably doesn't come into play if a person has a passport that matches their chosen gender. For everyone else, the default should be to let them compete as the gender of their choosing. When it comes to a problem with that, this is when the hard decisions must be made.
I mentioned this conversation to Jacquie, and she said "Why aren't you guys asking transgender people?" If you work in social services (as we do), it seems more likely to find all sorts of interesting people. I know three that I'm aware of, and surely at least a few more that aren't public about it. But none of these people are sports nerds, so I don't know how much they'd be able to add, beyond suggested sources for online info.
Comment
I feel like discrimination is a big word. It seems to be used when someone gets offended by people or a rule. But our society needs rules to work. We will always "discriminate" someone.
I could also say i feel discriminated cause i'm not allowed to start in expert individual freestyle or something at unicon and another rider out of another country is allowed to, even thought she's a worse rider than me, just cause there are less good riders in that country and i'm from Germany a country with many good freestyle riders.
You already stated above that we want to stick with our binary gender system. And i feel like not opening that system for everyone to choose (even thought you probbably would have to choose for the next 6 years) will cause less problems than otherwise. People who wants to get discriminated will always find a rule or something that discriminates them.
Comment
I disagree with Lasse regarding the removal of the 'unfair advantage'.
The point of competition is to find the best person at a particular activity. There will always be genetic advantages, and we split people into categories so that we find the best within each segment of the population. The most common is the male-female category, but in many sports (for instance boxing and other martial arts), there are categories based on weight. We also have age categories, although in most sports including our own, it is a secondary category and not held in the same regard.
At one extreme, we can have just one category, in which case, the majority of sports will be dominated by male athletes. Females wouldn't compete because there is little chance any of them would win. At the other extreme, you can hypothetically categorise people down to each genetic trait- from your V02Max and lactic threshold, to your height and weight. You stop selecting for athletes that are best suited to each activity, and performance comes down to willpower and chance/luck on the day. The categories would be meaningless as there is no one to compete against.
Most people agree to the male-female split, because that roughly splits the population in two, and it reflect the biggest genetic and phenotypic difference in a human population. For people who don't fit into either, or are moving between these categories, there HAS to be an attempt to minimise the factors which constitute an unfair advantage, otherwise the male-female categories would be meaningless. You would simply merge them and have a single category.
Comment
I agree with Lasse's version, with one clarification.
Let's say that a rider registers as male at Unicon 2020. They then start transitioning from male to female and by Unicon in 2022 they want to register as female. I think the intent of our rule is that they couldn't then register as male at Unicon 2024. However, the way the current wording is, it makes it sound that if they registered as male in 2020 they can't register as female until 2026 even if they have just started their transition.
I'm not sure what the correct wording is to get this across but I think right now it isn't clear.
Comment
I agree with Ken Looi's assessment of categorisation.
Do we all supporter just having one category (no splitting of male and female). If we are not concerned with the large advantage men tend to have over females genetically we may as well merge all categories similar to hockey/basketball. I don't think this is a good idea, even in hockey I have heard female riders complain about the extra strength the males possess (and they are correct).
If it seems crazy to most to even suggest that male and female riders compete for the same gold medal in 100m and high jump I am not sure why we think think these advantages would not be present in cisgender females competing against transgender females?
Comment
Steve, I'm not sure I follow. I'm pretty sure we are not going to do away with male/female separation. Nobody seems to have an issue with female-to-male transitions, and (I think but am no expert) rarely have an issue with male-to-female transitions. So I guess for us to have any meaningful rule or policy on this, beyond "the gender that you identify with and live in".
My expectation is that in the majority of cases, everyone will be fine. For people who have ID that matches their gender identity, this would not even be a thing; they would most likely just be considered to be that gender. But the IDs usually don't get changed until the person is well into, or past, the main transitional stuff. These are the riders we don't want to discriminate against. Hopefully a very tiny number of riders at any convention, but still we want to treat them with respect.
The default position should be to let all compete in their identified gender. If this is going to raise some peoples' hackles, we probably won't know about it until they arrive at the convention and people say uh-oh, that sheila looks like a guy! Of course, appearance is not athletic ability.
If we are only expecting to have these issues with riders that identify as female, I'm all for letting the women decide, but that still leaves the question of how to do it fairly and respectfully. We aren't going to be able to measure hormone levels, or anything medical. We can decide to accept any paperwork the rider might have about their current condition, but the IUF should never require that; it should only be offered voluntarily.
And really, I don't think we need to even consider any of this unless the person is an elite rider, in events where athletic ability is a strong factor. Not Slow Balance, not Freestyle, but yes to events where you have to put out maximum strength effort to do well, such as Trials, Jumps and races.
What I'm trying to say is for us to limit our expectations of allowing this to become an issue. Let each rider compete in their identified gender, and if there's an issue, then the IUF reserves the right to review the situation. Something like that.
Comment
Sorry John I wasnt suggesting we make a single category.
My point was that some people didn't want to include "and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors" in the rule despite the fact that we would never make a single category* because males have a distinct advantage over females physiologically so therefore are most likely to win the medals.
But by not including "and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors" we are saying as long as the rider identifies with a different gender then the significant physiological advantage is fine and too bad for cisgender females.
Just not sure why the unfair advantage is ok sometimes and not others?
*Hockey and basketball are mixed genders as the sports don't have enough single gender teams to hold male and female competitions. If we did have enough then there should probably be a male and a female comp
Comment
"Just not sure why the unfair advantage is ok sometimes and not others?" - That's a "fair" question! :-)
It should never be okay. the hard part can be making an objective decision about what's "fair" in situations like these. We can't necessarily answer that question in terms of gender; we will not be equipped. I am fine with including text similar to what you quoted above as part of a transgender statement. I am only concerned how people will react when they perceive someone as having such an advantage, but with us as a whole not having a way to determine what's "fair".
So for now I will stick with the idea of riders competing in their identified gender, but the IUF has the right to question this if the rider's ID doesn't match.
Comment
I think that it is a safe bet that with our inability to require anything specific to compete in male/female events aside from having an ID, that a transgender female would likely have an unfair advantage physiologically over a cisgender female.
Males are are on average broader, taller and heavier with more muscle mass and lower body fat. They on average are more physically stronger than females including greater strength to weight ratio (due to having lower body fat + higher muscle mass). For sedentary people at least females were 52% and 66% as strong as men in upper and lower body.
I am not saying we need to stop anyone competing, I do think we need to include something that allows the governing body to potentially assess an unfair advantage a transgender female may have over a cisgender female if it comes up. Otherwise you have the potential possibility of a person with average male attributes obliterating cisfemales in the competition and they have no avenue to do anything about it until the next rulebook.
However if the majority of female riders worldwide are not concerned by the disadvantage they may have when competing I don't think it is necessary to keep that statement in as they are the ones who are affected.
Comment
Thanks for everyone's input. I'm going to ask for this to be moved to proposal on my behalf with the initial wording below:
"Riders may register with the gender with which that individual identifies the most. Any rider who sign up with another gender than stated in their passport, should be approved by the Host/IUF. Changing gender again within a 6-year period is not allowed."
Regarding the debate about "unfair advantage", I believe determination as to whether there would be any advantage is exactly why approval by the host/IUF is required.
I do recognise that one situation this rule wouldn't cover is for a female who is in transition to male (so still has a female passport) and registers as a female, but is engaged in hormone therapy (including testosterone). I'm assuming that this case would be considered doping.
Comment
Your proposal says that approval is only required if the gender that they sign up with does not match their passport.
That doesn't address the unfair advantage a transexual female can have over a cisgender female at all?
Comment
Most of the transgender people I know prefer not to advertise their situation. People close to them have to know about it, but if they start a new job, for example, it's usually easier for everyone to "learn" that person in their current gender, and not necessarily ask them lots of embarrassing questions.
If you have ideas on how to recognize elite riders that are at risk of having an unfair advantage due to being in transition, we should discuss them here and try to figure out a method that can work, and remain discreet as necessary.
Comment
The risk of having an unfair advantage over the athlete they are competing against would be for any female transgender athlete competing against cisgender females. I already pointed out why multiple times, taller, stronger, higher muscle mass etc etc
Comment
Mark- your statement allows someone to change gender on their passport without need to assess 'unfair advantage'. It is entirely possible to change one gender from M->F without undergoing hormonal manipulation, which means you can compete as a female whilst maintaining 100% of the masculine advantage.
I agree that hormonal limits are an imperfect- a stop-gap measure from various sporting bodies whilst they grapple with a better solution. For instance, there has been a lot of controversy in NZ recently with a Trans M->F athlete competing in the women's national series and winning: https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2018/03/a-level-playing-field/
My suggestion is that we make the Male category an 'Open' category- anyone can compete regardless of sex, gender identity or hormone levels (provided that any male androgen supplementation does not elevate them above the male reference range). Maintain and protect the female category based on sex (ie XX). There may need to be special considerations for specific intersex conditions (eg androgen insensitivity syndrome), or in XO and XXY people.
The advantages are:
- no one is barred from participation based on the sex or gender
- it is competition based on ones natural genetic makeup (irrespective of their gender identity).
- it is acceptable to lower athletic ability by hormonal means, but it does not confer a competitive advantage by doing so.
Comment
I think it's either Any rider who signs up, or Any riders who sign up.
And about the last sentence: what if someone changes to female, also in their ID and hence approved by the IUF, and through hormone treatment etc has indeed the sport 'disadvantages' of a female, but after three years changes back to male with the associated sport 'benefits'. (I don't know if this is realistic but our rule seems to allude to such a scenario.)
In the first place it seems inappropriate for us not to "allow" this: who are we to give or deny permission? Secondly, if the last sentence of the proposal implies that this person must remain in the female category because the previous change is less than 6 years ago, this person has male characteristics but competes as female.
I don't know much about these things so I might work from incorrect assumptions. Just pointing out a possible problematic scenario, in my view.
Comment
I'm not in favor of an open male category. I feel like that implements that you are only a real champion if you won that category. Also why the male category and not the female? I feel like that's discriminating both male and female. Male cause they don't have their own category anymore and female cause it implements that female are not as good.
Also strenght isn't needed in every event to win. In Freestyle the top riders are mostly female. An open male category wouldn't protect them like the rule would protect the female racers.
Comment
Mark wrote: "I do recognise that one situation this rule wouldn't cover is for a female who is in transition to male (so still has a female passport) and registers as a female, but is engaged in hormone therapy (including testosterone). I'm assuming that this case would be considered doping."
You are correct. If the athlete chooses to stick with their legal ID but are in transition, we may or may not be able to tell. I'm not going to ask, but if the athlete thinks this will be an issue, perhaps our statement on transgender riders should include a request for riders who anticipate a problem to identify themselves? If it works in that direction, it means the rider is open to the idea of being scrutinized (to whatever level the IUF is able/willing to go) to make a determination whether we are okay with their choice.
Steven wrote: "The risk of having an unfair advantage over the athlete they are competing against would be for any female transgender athlete competing against cisgender females."
Potentially any, but not every. The difference might only be noticeable if the person is a very good rider. For an "average" rider it might not even register, and therefore not necessarily need any attention. That's good to know, but what we have to deal with are those problem situations. I think we can only know there's a situation in a few scenarios:
- If the person declares they are transgender, and thereby opens the discussion from their end, meaning they are willing to talk details
- If the person's fellow riders are worried about this person having an unfair advantage and bring up this situation
- If nobody knows about them and we don't find out there's an issue until they start dominating their events
Knowing in advance is good; it allows for a discussion. Then we get to figure out what we'll even do with the information that rider can provide, or that we can determine before competition starts. I think we can agree that we don't know if we can make this decision "correctly," but we should do our best to be fair to all.
Not knowing in advance will be interesting; we may end up figuring that one out the hard way, and again I don't have high expectations of us being able to make definitive good decisions. For females transitioning to male, we are told this probably isn't much of a concern, but I wouldn't want to discriminate...
If we want something concrete, Ken has the best suggestion so far, in the form of "when (we are) in doubt, the rider must compete with the males", along with that additional medical stuff he added. For anyone that doesn't know, Ken Looi is a medical doctor. A badass doctor who sets his own broken bones if there's no one else around!
I like what Ken wrote and perhaps that can be the basis of our statement on transgender athletes.
Klaas points out the limitation of our "6 year" rule, in that it should be overridden by what Ken wrote above.
Lisa, yes Ken's idea does discriminate, but in a way that allows us to address transgender athletes in a way that will probably offend the least amount of people. I don't think we need to allow that in the events that require more than straight athletic ability to win, with Freestyle being the best example. We could draw up a list, then fight over it, of which events need to allow the male category to be "open".
Comment
How is there a proposal written up for this when it is far from being agreed upon :/
Comment
Hi Lisa,
Quote:
"I'm not in favor of an open male category. I feel like that implements that you are only a real champion if you won that category. Also why the male category and not the female? I feel like that's discriminating both male and female. Male cause they don't have their own category anymore and female cause it implements that female are not as good."
-- it should be the 'Open' category, which would be open to males and everyone who does not come under female sex category, so it not discriminating against males, just simple adding a very small number of competitors to the male category. The reality is that with this categorisation, the population is still roughly split 50/50.
--what is a 'real champion'? Are women not 'real champions' because they (on the whole) do not beat men? Opening up the mens category to transgender athletes does not increase the number of competitors or the give a greater distinction to the male category.
--the other alternative is to have three categories: Male, Female, Open. However, that generally means you have two very large categories and one very small one. For competitors in the very small category it can be seen as either seen as a good thing (easy to win medals) or a bad thing (no one to compete against and therefore little distinction in winning this category.
"Also strenght isn't needed in every event to win. In Freestyle the top riders are mostly female. An open male category wouldn't protect them like the rule would protect the female racers."
For most disciplines male strength is an advantage. There are certain sports where we know women are at least as good, if not better than men (ultra-marathons for instance).
I can't comment on freestyle because I am not aware of solo men/women competing against each other competition, so don't know if women are better than men when judged on the same criteria. The M/F categories are there to separate out key genetic performance characteristics in the human population- if there is a sport where females have an advantage, you could potentially argue for a Open Female category, and have the protected Male.
Comment
Edit my typo to say:
--what is a 'real champion'? Are women not 'real champions' because they (on the whole) do not beat men? Opening up the mens category to transgender athletes does not significantly increase the number of competitors and give greater distinction to the male category
________________________________
The way I look at it:
1- Performance is based on a combination of: (genetic/natural ability + training + tactics + luck on the day)
2- Competition categories are there to stratify a human population due to key characteristics relating to natural ability. Most broadly, this is Male & Female sex.
3- Natural ability is what you are born with. It may or may not correlate with your gender identity.
4- No one should be prevented from competing based on their gender identity. Participation in sport is a human right.
5- It is okay to reduce your natural athletic ability by artificial means (ie performance reducing drugs), but not to increase it (ie with performance enhancing drugs).
6- In order to reconcile 4 and 5, we have to compromise and allow performance enhancing drugs (eg testosterone), but it must not provide a competition advantage.
If we use the Trans F->M as an example- I would be okay for this athlete to compete in the Female Category if they are not on any hormonal manipulation or performance enhancing intervention (because it is a 'sex' category rather than a 'gender' one). They should also be allowed to compete in the Male/Open category if they do not wish to identify as female, but without masculinising hormones are likely to be disadvantaged. On the other hand, once they start androgen treatment, they must compete in a Open category, because they are on performance enhancing drugs.
For a Trans M->F undergoing hormonal manipulation, they would still compete in the Male/Open category, because it is near impossible to quantify inbuilt male advantage (unless you want to get into the same problems that other sports grapple with- see my example of Kate Weatherly in my link above).
Is it fair that someone taking performance reducing drugs compete against people who are not? It can be argued that it isn't, but the competition categories are based on the 'natural athletic ability' that one is born with. You could be a male with heart condition who has take beta-blockers (which slow your heart and reduces your aerobic capacity), but that doesn't mean that you should be competing in the female category either.
Comment
I generally agree with Ken Looi's assessment of the issues.Particular attention needs to be paid to the fact that
1) change of gender on ID does not always mean change in hormones has been undertaken
2) Evidence is not conclusive that the rules set by the IOC about required hormone levels for transgender females = a reduction in male advantage leading to fair competition for females. The transgender female power lifter who broke 4 world records despite undergoing hormone replacement therapy is evidence of this. The lifter in question experienced a reduction in her performance after undergoing HRT but that doesn't mean it was reduced to lower than what cisgender females could do and still enables her to win.
3) Some non hormonal attributes such as height, arm span, hand size can play a role in various sport proficiency. Males have an advantage in all of these things and they are not changed by hormone therapy for transgender females.
I am not sure how males as an open category would go in practice if you have females who are currently superior to males in some events. Would females be able to enter both categories and win both?
Particularly stillstand where it is a safe bet that Ana Schrödinger's (WR time of 1 hour 49 mins) will result in her almost always beating the Male competitor (WR 25 mins). I don't think females are superior in this event due to any physiological differences however as the 2nd place female has a time of about 4 minutes, but enabling males to be open would still result in no "male" world champion and two female world champions.
Comment
We seem to be narrowing down to something we can make work. I'd like to take a stab at edits to the current proposal, and encourage the rest of you to pick them apart until we think we have something that will keep things sane, and negatively affect the least number of riders. How can we have a proposal already? Because we have a time limit, and it often helps to have something written down that we can then improve in specific ways.
For people who question this new rule, we should provide the "explanatory matter" somewhere, though not necessarily within the Rulebook, which is thick enough. Perhaps the rule can start with a quick statement of our approach and intent.
I like Ken's idea of the Male categories also being open if necessary. Riders who identify as female may be asked to compete in that category if they are known to be on performance-enhancing hormone treatments or, for other factors, would seem to be biologically advantaged for the female category.
Having that "Open" option raises a bunch of questions:
- Can you enter as both? Seems a pretty obvious No. That should be easy enough.
- If you are required to enter an event as Open, must you be in that category for everything you enter? I'd say no, but to make that work, we will have to agree on which events require this, and which ones have less to do with pure athletic ability.
Ken's #4 and 5 above kind of sum up the problem, at least in terms of hormone treatments. But there is also the physical size thing, which Steven has described. This is harder to quantify. My great niece, who is 6'-4" (1.93m), recently competed in a Power Volleyball tournament at the San Jose Convention Center. I never saw so many unnaturally tall women/girls in one place (thousands), all very fit athletes, and all were from just one corner of the country. Emily is taller than both of her parents, though I think her paternal grandpa is about her height. In other words, being exceptionally tall is not necessarily reason to discriminate. Fortunately, for the vast majority of our unicycling disciplines, being tall doesn't give a clear advantage. But we might need to consider it for events where it's a factor. We would have to agree which ones those are as well.
Our default should be to allow riders to compete in their identified gender, and only intervene if there is a perceived unfair advantage. We will know they're coming if they register as a different gender than their passport, possibly not if otherwise. Anyway, trying to take all of that into account, let's see what I can come up with
Current Proposal:
NEW: 1 B.6 Transgender Riders
Riders may register with the gender with which that individual identifies the most. Any rider who sign up with another gender than stated in their passport, should be approved by the Host/IUF. Changing gender again within a 6-year period is not allowed.
New Working Version:
NEW: 1 B.6 Transgender Riders
Riders may register with the gender with which that individual identifies the most. Riders who sign up with a different gender than stated in their passports must be approved by the Host and/or IUF. If the rider is determined to have an undue advantage, they may be required to enter some events in the opposite gender. The events where this may happen are:
<List>
The IUF acknowledges there is no perfect way to do this, and will take the utmost care to make these determinations, if at all, in a way that preserves a level playing field that's as level as possible.
-----------------
I've left out the 6-year thing for the moment; how to word that probably depends on how this part comes out. We will have to address it in the final version.
Please tear this one apart (and hopefully build a better one).
Comment
I'm not sure now is the right time to make a list of events where sex matter as it'll require deliberation within each subcommittee. For now it might be better to say that the event director or chief judge and the Unicon leadership makes the decision together on an event by event basis. If we're going to make a list we should allow time for proper deliberation in each category in the next rulebook.
We also need to consider that the sport might not be big enough that the biological limit has been reached in all the events. There's an example about stillstand where there's probably not much difference between the sexes. On the other hand freestyle has been mentioned and while it's true there's a difference in motorical skills that's more about gender than sex in my opinion and men will still have an advantage where it comes to strength, even if few skills require it (I know a few that does). Until we know where this could really add an unfair advantage I don't think it makes sense to have a list of events in the rulebook.
Comment
I don't have anything against an open category. But opening the male category is just not fair and pretty discriminating out of my point of view. Either you need to make it all open and then there's also no male and female category or we add a new open category for everyone who wants to compete in there. But that means a new category with probably nearly no competitors.
Comment
@John Foss
"This is harder to quantify. My great niece, who is 6'-4" (1.93m), recently competed in a Power Volleyball tournament at the San Jose Convention Center. I never saw so many unnaturally tall women/girls in one place (thousands), all very fit athletes, and all were from just one corner of the country. Emily is taller than both of her parents, though I think her paternal grandpa is about her height. In other words, being exceptionally tall is not necessarily reason to discriminate."
This is an incorrect assessment of the situation John. Yes many tall females exist however males on average are taller than females.
If you have 1000 Male Volleyballers and 1000 Female Volleyballers the likelihood that the top 25 tallest players are male is high, meaning if they were being selected for the same team and height was desired in that team the men would likely get most of the 25 spots.
As an example here is the characteristics of male and female professional volleyballers from the first research paper I found. The average male height is clearly taller, 186.9cm vs 175.1cm suggesting that the programs tend to take the tallest people of their gender.
If you have 1000 Transgender female and 1000 cisgender female volleyballers, the chances that the top 25 tallest players are all transgender females is as likely as if you took 1000 males as hormone therapy does nothing to height change. Whether or not you have enough transgender athletes competing for spots to make the advantage as glaringly obvious as my example shouldn't matter really.
To a certain degree we are lucky as we don't have such an obvious benefit from height as volleyballers however its hard to say there is no benefit in any of our events.
Comment
This is one of the better articles I've seen on the performance issues Steve addressed:
https://sportsscientists.com/2019/03/on-transgender-athletes-and-performance-advantages/
I'm currently helping someone with M->F transition. He (still wishes to be addressed by male name and pronoun) has hormone levels down to the female range, and has been for over 2yrs. He would qualify for female competition in many sports based on testosterone criteria, but no amount of hormone manipulation is going to change his masculine frame (very tall, wide shoulders)
My main reservation about having the 'Open' category is that it sets us apart from other sports, and if it is legally challenged, we can't say that we are following the example set by bigger/better resourced sporting organisations.
There is also a strong voice within the transgender community which argues that they should be afforded the same rights as cis-gendered people. They argue that a trans M->F should be accorded the same rights as cis-females- which means competing in the female category rather than a separate category.
Comment
Does anyone know transgender unicyclists who can be invited to this committee discussion? Connie- are you able to ask the NAUCC transgender competitors to participate in this committee?
Comment
Hi everybody,
My name is Sarah, and I am a transgender woman who competed in the female categories of NAUCC 2017.
I also race velodrome in USAC sanctioned races in the female categories. Both IOC and USAC have clear policies on transgender athlete participation, for both trans women and trans men. I wonder, as an international sport with a governing body, why we don't simply follow in the footsteps of larger national and international governing bodies as their policies have worked for them so far.
Both the USAC and IOC policies limit testosterone levels for "Elite" level athletes, and despite that, most trans women fall far below those limits. Personally I'm not even at 10% of the limit, closer to 2.5%-3%.
For non "Elite" atheletes (for sake of argument, lets say everyone not competing in the "expert" categories of unicycle events), the USAC policies is simply to let a rider race in their preferred category provided that they meet 1 of the following criteria:
- Does the member’s gender in their “everyday life” match his or her racing gender
- Has the member obtained civil documents with his or her racing gender identified (i.e. state I.D., driver’s license, birth certificate)
- Attestation of gender identity from a medical professional
- Attestation of gender identity from a certified counselor, public official, school administrator, or other academic advisor
- Compliance with IOC guidelines.
When I competed at NAUCC in 2017, I trained for it, I put a lot of work into it. I still got absolutely demolished by other girls in both MUni categories. While I did technically win the female expert trials, I would not have, had the multiple girls who scored higher than me not been international competitors.
A lot of the attitude towards trans people's participation in sports is that nobody cares to think about it until one of us wins something. What does that say about the "protection" of "fair play"? Seems as if its only fair if we lose.
I would also like to point out that much of trans athlete participation focuses on the women. Often they are left out of the conversation because they are not seen as a "threat" to the other men in the category. I see that this issue was briefly mentioned earlier but not expanded upon much.
This is all I have for now as I was just brought into this discussion today, however I will contact some people I know who have worked to form more inclusive policies and attitudes within cycling, and ask for their input based on that similar realm.
Comment
Thank you Sarah, for your perspective. I fully agree as a small sport we should just follow the guidelines from more established sports associations.
I think the 5 criteria mentioned seem to make a lot of sense and is something we could easily use as well. It seems they cover most situations without being intrusive or overbroad. I would be happy to have something like that in the rulebook as it does make it more explicitly inclusive than simply stating we'll have to review it when time comes.
Comment
Hi Sarah,
Thank you for contributing to the discussion.
I agree it is easiest to follow the guidelines set in other sports, but I disagree that the 'policies have worked'. There is very likely to be legal challenges in the near future.
Quote
"Both the USAC and IOC policies limit testosterone levels for "Elite" level athletes, and despite that, most trans women fall far below those limits. Personally I'm not even at 10% of the limit, closer to 2.5%-3%."
That is not the issue- the question is whether the male advantage is removed simply by lowering testosterone. There is little evidence to support or refute this, let alone whether it is a linear relationship (which is unlikely).
Quote
"When I competed at NAUCC in 2017, I trained for it, I put a lot of work into it. I still got absolutely demolished by other girls in both MUni categories. While I did technically win the female expert trials, I would not have, had the multiple girls who scored higher than me not been international competitors. "
There is a big overlap in male-female performance. It is possible that pre-transition, you may have also been 'demolished' by other girls. I get beaten by girls in MUni all the time, as a cis-male.
Quote:
"A lot of the attitude towards trans people's participation in sports is that nobody cares to think about it until one of us wins something. What does that say about the "protection" of "fair play"? Seems as if its only fair if we lose. "
The increasing participation of transgender athletes (a good thing) has made issues come to the fore. Elite cis-female athletes would still beat most male athletes. There are relatively few transgender athletes, so it is an uncommon event to be on the podium, which is where it is most contentious.
At the recreational/sport level, it's not an issue because competitors have a huge number of athletes ahead of them- no big deal to let one more person beat you. At the elite level, the question is raised because 1) these are very competitive people, and 2) usually money/sponsorship/championship titles are at stake.
Quote
I would also like to point out that much of trans athlete participation focuses on the women. Often they are left out of the conversation because they are not seen as a "threat" to the other men in the category. I see that this issue was briefly mentioned earlier but not expanded upon much.
If the argument is: "testosterone level does not account for the entire male vs female advantage in competition", then the presumption is that a trans F->M does not gain a greater advantage from taking exogenous testosterone, providing that they are not supplementing into the supra-therapeutic range. It's not about whether one is a 'threat' but whether there is an unfair advantage.
Look at it another way- we know that testosterone levels drop as you get older. If a 65yr old male athlete supplemented themselves with testosterone to their 20yr old levels, are they competing on equal terms with a 20yr old? Conversely- is it fair for a 20yr old to compete in the 65yr old category simply by lowering their testosterone to 65yr old levels?
Comment
I agree with Ken Looi's responses.
The IOC guidelines are not clear as there is not enough evidence to show that limiting testosterone alone makes an even playing field in transgender females and cisgender females. I have showed evidence where stature (unchanged by hormone replacement) seems to make a large difference in selection/success of elite athletes in sports.
There is certainly not enough evidence to show that simply lowering testosterone reduces muscle mass and strength found in males. There is evidence to suggest that muscle memory experienced in muscle fibres that were at some point large (muscley people e.g. males) enable people to grow muscle back quicker than in fibers that were never large. It is conceivable that someone who had larger muscle mass through higher testosterone at one point in their life could also put on more muscle mass at a later stage despite hormone replacement than someone who never had that muscle mass to begin with.
I agree it is easiest to follow the guidelines set in other sports, but I disagree that the 'policies have worked'. There is very likely to be legal challenges in the near future.
Quote
"Both the USAC and IOC policies limit testosterone levels for "Elite" level athletes, and despite that, most trans women fall far below those limits. Personally I'm not even at 10% of the limit, closer to 2.5%-3%."
That is not the issue- the question is whether the male advantage is removed simply by lowering testosterone. There is little evidence to support or refute this, let alone whether it is a linear relationship (which is unlikely).
Comment
We are getting to the point where we have to choose one of these:
- ignore this issue with the rulebook for 1.5 more years (and make the hosts/IUF board deal with any issues that arise at Unicon20);
- include a generic sentence in the rulebook that is far from perfect;
- adopt another sport's rule.
Comment
I am in favor of a generic sentence, acknowledging that it will likely be edited in the future. We have transgender competitors competing currently and I think it would be a disservice to not include anything.
Comment
I am in favor of a generic sentence. The IUF board has the option to follow another sport if a more definite policy is needed.
Comment
I would be fine with Connie's option 1, but I'm in a minority I think.
I would then prefer option 2. I don't think a generic sentence is necessarily far from perfect. It's undoubtedly far from complete, but if the IUF Board has the authority to decide in specific cases, that seems the 'most perfect' solution for now. And it might even be the best solution long-term but that's up for discussion in the next Rulebook round.
Comment
I support a generic statement for this round of the rulebook.
Comment
I support a generic sentence.
Comment
Do we have a draft "generic statement" to work from? I think we can offer at least the beginnings of a policy. We can reduce a lot of what we've been discussing by admitting we aren't going to be testing anyone's hormone levels or similar. I know we need to get something decided, but for the vast majority of riders, I still think we can start with allowing riders to compete in the gender on their passport (assuming that's the right one for them), and for riders who do not have passports to match their identified gender, to handle each request on a case-by-case basis.
The word 'passport' can be substituted with the local top-level ID for riders competing within their own country if they don't have a passport or don't require one to travel to that country, etc. etc.
The above would give us the start of a policy, and one that should cover the vast majority of applicants without issues.
Comment
The idea behind adding a "generic statement" is IMHO to circumvent/postpone for now the discussions that would be required to get agreement on a more definitive policy.
I agree that for the vast majority of riders, gender in their ID will be fine. But the issue is with the remaining minority. Discussing how to deal with them brings us back to square one with this discussion.
Having said that, I agree it would be good to have a specific draft "generic statement" rather than only the notion that we need one.
Comment
There is a draft "generic statement". At the top of this discussion, there is a link to the proposal.
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.
Comment
The current proposal is less generic than the rule that we seem to be landing on for performance-enhancing drugs. I don't know how to formulate something that expresses gender inclusiveness, but refers any cases of doubt to IUF Board discretion.
Comment
I'd like to point out that while that generic statement is fairly inclusive on the surface, there are many countries that either do not allow or have such strict requirements for ID document changes that it can be impossible for some to change it. I realize that the deadline for revisions is fast approaching, but it is something to consider though maybe left until the next set of revisions.
Comment
Sarah, you are right. And thank you for joining this discussion and helping us out! In the vast majority of cases, having the matching ID will make this a non-issue. It's where they don't match that all the "stuff" will happen. And since we don't have much to offer on that, what is currently proposed is a pretty safe and flexible option. The rider must request to compete in their identified gender, and then the IUF can (later) figure out what questions to ask to make a decision.
Were it up to me I'd be inclined to say "Okay, welcome!" and wait to see if the poop hits the propeller...
Comment
The current proposal is too generic as it enables no ability to assess unfair advantage that a transgender female has over cisgender female.
I would only support a statement such as Ken Looi proposed as it enables us to revisit the fairness in the almost certain cases that will arise.
"a player may register with the gender with which the player identifies most, and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors"
It seems to me that people seem to misunderstand gender differences in anthropometry and physiology and assume that simply lowering testosterone to a set amount will remove all unfair advantage that a male would have over a female.
This is questionable as we have pointed out and there appears to be be an increasing number of real world scenarios that are evidence of this.
USA
New Zealand
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/21/transgender-weightlifter-breaks-womens-record/
New Zealand
Australia
Comment
I tend to agree with the bold text quoted by Steven, preferably with the addition that cases of doubt are subject to IUF Board decision or discretion. This doubt would especially be around "unfair advantage".
Oh and I don't like "player". I suggest to replace by "competitor".
Comment
I agree with Steven's last post, and Klaas's proposed replacement of 'player' with 'competitor'
The passport/ID part should be left out because many countries do not allow gender change on their official documents. We need to be consistent, and we can't treat competitors differently based on which country they are from.
Comment
I agree with both of Klaas's points.
Comment
It sounds like we're getting somewhere! The only problem with Steven's bolded text above is the question of who and how we determine if a person will have an unfair advantage. While that is the crux of the problem, at least with this text we are stating it it a way that should make people feel more comfortable.
On the passport thing, I understand this could be a problem for most transgender people regardless of country; for example a US passport is good for ten years, but I guess you'd have to change it anyway if you wanted to travel as the new version of you. But eliminating the "government issued ID" part also removes that complexity from our Rulebook. While we are allowing people to register as the gender of their choice "without proof", having such proof in the form of documentation doesn't necessarily help anyway.
So I'm pretty in favor of what Steven wrote. Basically it shifts the responsibility to the host and/or IUF, in the future, to deal with outside of our crisp world of very specific rules. :-)
Comment
How long is the proposal going to stay in Pre-Voting status?
Comment
I think the wording needs to be changed currently based on consensus
Comment
I am okay with the current text, but also open to suggestions for edits.
Comment
I believe people supported the inclusion of the advantage text.
Comment
Yes, and also the IUF Board competency to decide in cases of doubt. So I think there would be agreement on
A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most, and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors. Any case of doubt is subject to a decision by the IUF Board.
The only thing I wonder is if we need to make explicit about what type of doubt the IUF Board has decisive power. In my opinion, this should not be about "identifies most" (because we go by what the rider or, in the case of a minor, their legal representative states), but only about "unfair advantage".
Comment
A point Sarah made is that "A lot of the attitude towards trans people's participation in sports is that nobody cares to think about it until one of us wins something."
I wonder if the proposed text regarding "unfair advantage" is leaving the door wide open to post-event protests based on what another competitor may consider unfair...
Comment
I think that any rule on gender issues in sports, be it the simple rule that we now propose or the extended policies that exist in some other sports, will eventually lead to an argument. If our rule includes that the IUF Board decides on what would be "unfair advantage", then our riders will ultimately have to accept the Board's verdict. (I don't envy the Board though...)
Most members of this committee seem to agree that a simple rule, almost like a statement of principle, is better than no rule on gender issues and trans people at all. Considering that situation as a given, I wouldn't know how to improve the proposal. If, at some point in the future, we have more time for good considerations, and perhaps a few cases at hand, the current proposal could evolve into a more complete policy.
Bottom line: you may be right, but do you see a way to improve the proposed text?
Comment
"A lot of the attitude towards trans people's participation in sports is that nobody cares to think about it until one of us wins something." -- I believe that is the truth. Until somebody wins something, who cares? But it would be even more unfair to ask a person to not win. Until somebody does win, having a statement about it in our Rulebook will be sufficient. Then, whatever happens next, we get to blame the IUF board...
When this does come up, I would expect the IUF Board to consult with experts, and reference existing precedents that have been set by larger organizations, so hopefully the "blame" can be redirected at people who are actually experts on the subject.
To improve the proposed text, my only suggestion would be to leave out the part about "unfair advantage". I don't think people need to read that to understand why it might be an issue. By leaving it out, we are also eliminating the thing people may point to, saying it was unfair.
Mark Atkinson mentions post-event protests, which would likely be the most common type. Of course post-event could mean right at the finish line. Like Sarah said, everybody's fine until a trans person wins. We are more likely to "know" there's a question about a rider's strengths after they have competed than before, but this is to be expected. We should expect it.
Comment
I was feeling this out with my earlier comment, but I think leaving out the text referring to "unfair advantage" is a good idea. This would leave the proposed text as "A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most.".
This is a simple statement of policy but important as it would protect a transgender rider's entry from being challenged.
Comment
And then you disadvantage non transgender females?
Comment
How is that any more appropriate?
Comment
Actually Connie just changed the text of the proposal as I was making my last comment... Here is the latest version:
OLD: nothing
NEW: 1 B.6 Transgender Riders
A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most. Any case of doubt is subject to a decision by the IUF Board.
Comment
With this new text, what kind of doubt can there be? In other words, when would the second sentence come into effect?
Comment
Yeh the "any case of doubt" is nice because it seems "safe" in that it doesn't approach the potential unfair advantage transgender females may have but it does open up a lot of questions about what doubt is about.
Is it doubt about what gender they identify with?
For those that do not want to include the statement about unfair advantage can you state why you think the statement is not important?
Is it that you think there is no advantage or is that that despite the advantage transgender females should still be able to compete against cisgender females?
Comment
I am in favour of including the statement about unfair advantage AND the Any case of doubt... sentence.
Steve asks some good to-the-point questions.
I'm looking forward to the answers from those who like the current proposal without the statement about unfair advantage.
Comment
I posted something yesterday but it didn't seem to go through.
As Klaas pointed out, the second sentence needs to be adjusted because the first sentence is a simple statement, not a choice. Question is how to edit it. Maybe something like"
"If there is a question of this choice being appropriate for sport, the IUF Board will decide."
Hopefully that also addresses Steven's concerns. Yes, we understand the main reason why people may object to a trans person competing in sports is if they are perceived to have an unfair or inappropriate advantage. I don't think we need to tell people this.
Comment
A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most. If there is a question of this choice being appropriate for sport, the IUF Board will decide.
Is this the suggest proposal? Or satisfies me as it provides the same options as the unfair advantage.
However, I would make a guess that this is more offensive than the unfair advantage statement.
The statement on unfair advantage is about whether their gender characteristics puts them at an advantage over others, which it's possible to provide sensible arguments of why that could actually occur (I think ken and my arguments are fairly straightforward). We definitely think these competitors should be competing but the question is where is appropriate to create a fair playing field for ALL competitors not just transgender competitors.
The appropriate for sport (to me) sounds like because they are identify of a different gender they potentially are no longer appropriate to compete in sport.
Comment
Indeed, the suggested sentence by John may result in the IUF Board deciding that the gender with which someone identifies most is an inappropriate choice. That sounds offensive.
The sentence about unfair advantage seems to me to be more neutral. Who can object that a sports competition should be fair?
Comment
Sorry, I really don't like this wording:
"If there is a question of this choice being appropriate for sport, the IUF Board will decide."
The reason is that it takes out the primary reason the IUF needing to decide, which is about unfair advantage. Someone who reads this will see it as the IUF board making a judgement on one's gender choice, and can be seen as discriminatory. It's not about whether the gender choice is 'appropriate'- that is up to the individual.
I would modify it to say:
"A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most. If there is a question of unfair advantage as a result of this choice, it will be subject to decision by the IUF Board."
I don't think the IUF board will appreciate having to adjudicate on this matter, but at least it kicks the can down the road until we come up with something more definitive in a future rulebook.
The protests regarding unfair advantage is most likely to happen 'after' the event, which is not ideal. It will delay prizegiving- imagine trying to contact all the IUF board members to make a decision after a race has finished, with minimal information (are you going to ask someone to submit their hormone levels if they don't have the documentation?)
I am thinking that we will need to have another sentence like:
"For riders likely to gain an advantage as a result of their gender choice, they should contact the IUF board for consideration at least 3 months prior to competition"
Comment
I don't like that last sentence either. If a female cisgender unicyclist would have an extremely high but naturally occurring testosterone level (which gives her an edge in competition), does she have that advantage because of her choice not to become a male - and thus be required to contact the IUF beforehand?
Taking it more to the extreme: would any female unicyclist gain an advantage by choosing to be or remain female? Strictly this is true.
Comment
Klaas Bil is correct I think.
Does the original proposal also fall short on that?
A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most, and which will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors. Any case of doubt is subject to a decision by the IUF Board.
I think the below makes sense also. Other sports require full on blood work. I think it's reasonable to at least require to give warning.
For riders likely to gain an advantage as a result of their gender choice, they should contact the IUF board for consideration at least 3 months prior to competition"
Comment
How wide is the group required to contact IUF Board? If Caster Semenya (who I assume was assigned female gender at birth time and remained female ever since) were a unicyclist, would she be likely to gain an advantage as a result of her choice to remain female?
Or is the (hidden?) assumption that the sentence only concerns transgenders?
Comment
The statement of "unfair advantage" implies that transgender unicyclists have a choice.
Comment
Ah yes Connie is correct. I think the unfair advantage is solid enough.
In Casters case:
Assuming there is enough to classify her specifically as female (I've never seen evidence to say she is biologically male and should compete as one) then she is a female with 1 in a million genetic mutations that make her better than other females through luck. Sport is always about finding the person with the crazy genetics that makes them amazing, Michael Phelps long arms/feet, rowers large lung volumes, basketballers height.
Caster Semenya if "technically" female is not choosing to change her gender. So I see this as a different case. She just has the 1 in a million genetics that sport hopes for.
It's very unfortunate (for the athlete that wants to switch gender and compete at the top level in that gender) that people born as male are likely to have more chances of success in female categories. Because it creates the issue we have here where choosing to compete in one gender or the other could have a large impact on your success. None the less it is still an issue that you kind of have to tackle to try and increase "fairness" across the board, not just for transgender athletes.
Comment
I'm on board with Steven's first paragraph part. As Ken points out, most protests may happen after a competition event, when people see a concrete example of the rider's capabilities. It is unlikely that the IUF Board can assemble and make a decision in a short amount of time, so if I were in charge, I would leave the competition result(s) as they are, with notation that a change may be determined later. I'm not recommending to put that in the rules, it's just a reasonable way to proceed in such a situation.
However if this comes up in that rider's first event, it creates a situation where all of that rider's other events may be a problem as well. Will we know in advance about Transgender riders? I think in some cases yes, but in other cases no. If transgender riders are registered, the Board should be informed so that they have a plan in place if a problem arises. For example, if all Board members won't be present, they can agree upon a committee comprised of people who will be available at that convention to make a determination. I wish upon them an easy choice, if possible!
For Ken's proposed second sentence, use of the word "should" will likely result in very few people informing the board. This is for two reasons; the obvious one being that few people read the rules, but the other being that they may choose not to inform the Board and hope for the best. But I'm okay with that; maybe it will be fine. If anything, take out the "should"; maybe something like this:
"For riders likely to gain an advantage as a result of their gender choice, the host urges you to contact them at least 3 months prior to the competition."
I didn't make it a demand, and I switched to the Host because this would most likely happen as part of the rider registering for the event, and would have easy access to the Host's contact info. The Host "must" then forward that information to the IUF Board, of course.
Comment
There will have to be special considerations for people who have disorders of sex development, but that is a very small subset. We will have to accept that we do not have the resources to test for this, or even to make a judgement on the competition category.
The majority will be people who are born both phenotypically and genotypically male/female, who change gender.
If we keep the current scope of the rulebook to this for now, I think it that can be worded as:
"A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most. If this is different from their assigned gender at birth, they must ensure that their gender choice will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors. Any case of doubt is subject to a decision by the IUF Board. For riders likely to gain an advantage as a result of their gender choice, they should contact the IUF board for consideration at least 3 months prior to competition"
The birth gender will be the same as the chosen gender for the vast majority of riders. For M->F transgender riders, they will know that they have to satisfy the IUF that they have taken steps to reduce their male advantage, if competing as female.
Comment
In response to John:
"However if this comes up in that rider's first event, it creates a situation where all of that rider's other events may be a problem as well. Will we know in advance about Transgender riders? I think in some cases yes, but in other cases no."
-- no we won't. We are relying on riders to self disclose. As I see it, we are putting this in the rulebook to be inclusive and fair to everyone. Whether it is enforceable is another matter.
"For Ken's proposed second sentence, use of the word "should" will likely result in very few people informing the board. This is for two reasons; the obvious one being that few people read the rules, but the other being that they may choose not to inform the Board and hope for the best. But I'm okay with that; maybe it will be fine. If anything, take out the "should"; maybe something like this:"
"For riders likely to gain an advantage as a result of their gender choice, the host urges you to contact them at least 3 months prior to the competition."
I disagree with taking out the word 'should'. We are making a stand on what we think is fair and what isn't. Just as with the anti-doping policy, we may not be able to enforce it, but it outlines our thinking. If someone doesn't tell us because they didn't read the rulebook- that's no different to not reading any of other competition rules before their event (they may get a penalty or disqualification). If they choose not to inform us....it's on their conscience...unless it comes to light, in which case they have breached a competition rule.
Comment
I can largely agree to Ken's wording, two posts up.
I wonder about "For riders likely to gain an advantage as a result of their gender choice" ...
Is this the rider's own verdict? Based on gut feel? If so, so be it... there is no better verdict I think.
We might want to reword to make explicit whose verdict it is, e.g.
Any rider who expects to gain an advantage as a result of their gender choice, should contact...
And one more thing. Is the IUF Board the best entity to inform, for all kinds of conventions large and small? Perhaps specifying the Host is better, as John also commented. The Host in turn "must" contact the IUF Board.
Comment
The language suggesting riders might get an "unfair advantage" seems bigoted to me. Unicon is as much a convention as a competition and we're including this rule to make sure we can include as many people as possible. I'm sure we can come up with a better wording that doesn't suggest someone is somehow using their transgender status to gain an advantage in competition.
On the note of making Unicon inclusive to people of all genders (as well as nationalities, races, etc) we also have to be really careful about how protests over gender assignments are being handled. Delaying results or changing them after competitions will not make Unicon feel truly safe and inclusive for trans persons. We need to ensure trans people are not harassed or questioned or otherwise made to feel unwelcome similar to how we wouldn't accept it if we experienced bigotry against other groups at IUF events.
As for expecting transgender people to have to contact the IUF board prior to events I think it's important to note that
1) the cutoff for contacting the board cannot be before the registration deadline as that creates a de facto barrier to participation
2) you're asking people to give up some sensitive personal information which the IUF today literally cannot safely or legally handle (as per the data/GDPR discussion).
Similar to the doping rules we're largely limited to putting a loose policy in place since we lack the resources of larger sports organisations (which are themselves struggling with this question) to medically assess gender and we may not even be legally allowed to ask trans persons to hand over the medical information needed to make an assessment when no thought has gone into how that data should be stored, used, transmitted or deleted and places an extra burden for trans persons to register.
There's a number of competing principles at play and it's important we're clear how we prioritize between these principles. We can make a statement that's explicitly inclusive while keeping the door open to the slight, theoretical chance that someone may gain an advantage over their cisgender opponents. We can also make a statement that's overly inquisitive, doesn't have any tooth and ultimately opens us up to discrimination lawsuits. For me it's pretty clear the first option is preferable and then the policy can be adopted as the issue develops within broader society and other sports.
Comment
Thanks Klaas, I realised after I wrote it that the second part needs to specify that it refers the first part. I've changed it around slightly:
"A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most. If this is different from their assigned gender at birth, they must ensure that their gender choice will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors. Any case of doubt is subject to a decision by the IUF Board For riders likely to gain an advantage as a result of their gender choice, they These riders should contact the IUF board for consideration at least 3 months prior to competition.
Magnus- no one is suggesting that one is using transgender status to gain advantage- in fact, if a F->M transgender athlete competes in the Male category, it is likely that they are at a disadvantage. I don't see the wording as bigoted.
In terms of the 3 month deadline- that is what I expect it to take to get a decision from the IUF- if an event registration closed on the day of the start (or even continues whilst the event is in progress), there is no time for the IUF to make a deliberation.
Quote Magnus:
"Delaying results or changing them after competitions will not make Unicon feel truly safe and inclusive for trans persons. We need to ensure trans people are not harassed or questioned or otherwise made to feel unwelcome similar to how we wouldn't accept it if we experienced bigotry against other groups at IUF events."
To ensure this happens, we need to have a reasonable time before the event in order to make a decision (eg 3 months). It seems that you have two competing statements here.
Or are you proposing that it doesn't matter if there is an unfair advantage? It will almost certainly cause upset after the event....that is when the protests start coming in. The 'questions' will happen regardless. How do we deal with that?
Quote Magnus:
"We can make a statement that's explicitly inclusive while keeping the door open to the slight, theoretical chance that someone may gain an advantage over their cisgender opponents. We can also make a statement that's overly inquisitive, doesn't have any tooth and ultimately opens us up to discrimination lawsuits. For me it's pretty clear the first option is preferable and then the policy can be adopted as the issue develops within broader society and other sports."
It's absolute chance if one is M->F transgender and not on any hormonal manipulation. Testosterone levels are a far from perfect proxy for male performance advantage, but it is the best we have, and it is what other sports use.
Lawsuits can go either way- but I think you are correct in this regard- transgender competitors are likely to litigate based on perceived discrimination, than cis-gendered competitors for unfairness in a sport that has no monetary incentive.
Comment
Magnus- no one is suggesting that one is using transgender status to gain advantage- in fact, if a F->M transgender athlete competes in the Male category, it is likely that they are at a disadvantage. I don't see the wording as bigoted.
It's true that the F–>M likely won't be at an advantage but that's not what the discussion is about. The discussion is about where advantage may be gained and that's something that is and will remain sensitive. There's a lot of different people who'll use the rulebook to figure out what to expect at Unicons and not all may share equally progressive views – which is why I think it's important the statement errs on the inclusive side.
To ensure this happens, we need to have a reasonable time before the event in order to make a decision (eg 3 months).
The deadline for registering for events is always somewhat before the start of the event. The deadline for registering as a transgender competitor cannot be earlier than the general registration deadline. The time between the registration deadline and the start of the event should be set so there's enough time to figure these things out (and to buy medals and make the track program and collect music for freestyle and everything else).
Or are you proposing that it doesn't matter if there is an unfair advantage?
Partly, I guess. There's competing priorities and it's important to be clear which priorities are more important. The issue of "unfair advantage" is something that's super hard to properly evaluate and to evaluate it we may run into clear civil rights issues. The issue of inclusion is more straight forward.
The 'questions' will happen regardless. How do we deal with that?
The best way would be with the 1 of 5 solution suggested by Sarah earlier seems to be the best way. I would imagine most transgender people will register with the gender they live as in normal life or have an ID showing their gender (even if it's flawed for some countries). It's something that can be handled at Unicon checkin, it's mostly objective criteria and it's something that can be checked at Unicon checkin rather than needing a deliberation from the IUF board prior to the competition.
As questions start arriving it's important that the officials at events have been properly trained to handle them. The question is if a 'question' can be handled as a 'protest'. The first requires an answer to the person asking, the second potentially involves changing the results after a competition.
It's absolute chance if one is M->F transgender and not on any hormonal manipulation. Testosterone levels are a far from perfect proxy for male performance advantage, but it is the best we have, and it is what other sports use.
Lawsuits can go either way- but I think you are correct in this regard- transgender competitors are likely to litigate based on perceived discrimination, than cis-gendered competitors for unfairness in a sport that has no monetary incentive.
We still need to be sure about how we collect, use, share, store and delete information about people's medical history. We don't have an anti-doping program and we don't really have any policies in place to ensure the medical data can be handled by trained professionals. With heightened scrutiny for transgender participants ("unfair advantage") and an organisation not actually capable of making these judgements it's easy to see it as discrimination.
I think for what Unicon is there can be made a rule that's explicitly inclusive and allows cases of doubt (based on clear criteria) when getting wristbands. Asking participants to give up sensitive information without being clear on our commitment for how to handle that and how judgements are made seems unfair and discriminatory to me.
Comment
Quote Magnus:
"The deadline for registering for events is always somewhat before the start of the event. The deadline for registering as a transgender competitor cannot be earlier than the general registration deadline. The time between the registration deadline and the start of the event should be set so there's enough time to figure these things out (and to buy medals and make the track program and collect music for freestyle and everything else)."
I think anything less than 3 months will be insufficient time for the IUF to make a decision. It is not a registration deadline, it is simply when the IUF should be informed of one's intention to register, so they can ensure that the rider has taken steps to minimise any unfair advantage.
However, it may be too complex for the IUF board to make a decision on. I take your point about sensitive information.
Really, the options are:
1 Try to pre-empt a problem with competition results, by making a decision about unfair advantage and the competition category for a transgender rider 'before' the event.
2 Have some sort of plan for what we do when there is a protest (?maybe award a third category- 'Male', 'Female' and 'Cis-gendered' females?)
3 Not worry about it until we have to deal with it, in which case, we can make a sufficiently vague statement about unfair advantage and drop the requirement to contact the IUF, or for the IUF to make a decision. The first two sentences gives us this:
"A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most. If this is different from their assigned gender at birth, they must ensure that their gender choice will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors. Any case of doubt is subject to a decision by the IUF Board. These riders should contact the IUF board for consideration at least 3 months prior to competition."
Comment
I think anything less than 3 months will be insufficient time for the IUF to make a decision.
That really isn't be the problem of the person wishing to participate. We set the registration deadline as close to the start of the event so as many people as possible can register. It is obviously makes it easier for all when people register in good time which is why we have early bird pricing but I closing registration for for certain classes of participants before others seem like open and shut discrimination. Doubly so when it's not clearly stated why it would take 3 months for IUF to come to a decision (consultation with doctors, they have a slow meeting schedule, calling expert witnesses?).
There's still the issue of "unfair advantage" which I think is needlessly transphobic and puts the burden on the transgender person to prove they're not at an advantage (how do you prove such a thing?).
Personally I think there should be clear criteria for which gender a transgender competitor is assigned to compete as, which will then let 1 be possible in that no protest is possible and the gender is known before the first competition starts. These were the criteria from a different association for everyone not "elite" (1 out of the criteria need to be true):
– Does the member’s gender in their “everyday life” match his or her racing gender
– Has the member obtained civil documents with his or her racing gender identified (i.e. state I.D., driver’s license, birth certificate)
– Attestation of gender identity from a medical professional
– Attestation of gender identity from a certified counselor, public official, school administrator, or other academic advisor
– Compliance with IOC guidelines.
These are criteria that can easily be checked at check in and then stuck to. Any mention of advantage in the rulebook will really only be possible to examine in retrospect and even then we'll have a hard time with actually producing proof either way.
Comment
Magnus brings up good points. I'm asking myself, what will the IUF Board accomplish in 3 months, if they know very little about the rider? We can ask them to supply us with.... what exactly, without being intrusive? If it's a rider with a known "track" record of past competition who is transitioning male to female, this is a potential issue. I'm inclined to just let them compete, because the alternative is to create a whole batch of criteria that don't currently exist, to order them otherwise.
I submit that this is likely to be an extremely rare occurrence in situations where a performance advantage may be perceived, and an even rarer occurrence of this happening in the elite ranks. I am inclined toward Magnus' approach, as one of inclusion, attention to rider privacy and additionally making the IUF look like the good guy. His list of suggested criteria sounds pretty good to me, and while I don't advocate putting that in the Rulebook, that could be something the IUF Board uses to make a decision, if the question arises. The nice thing about that one is that they can simply share that list with the rider (or parents of rider), and get a pretty quick response.
The most likely negative scenario I see in all of this is a non-elite rider in racing events, where the parents of another rider complain about the "unfairness" of a trans rider that placed higher than their child in an event. I would be happy to be the person assigned to tell those parents to "suck it up". :-)
Beyond that, I think we can keep with a light an simple statement similar to what we have, that does not ask riders to self-report unless they so choose, and includes words of inclusion and welcome to all persons who love unicycling.
Comment
Btw, the list above is from Sarah's post further above.
I also agree the most likely situation that may arise is exactly the one you describe. I can clearly see it happening and it's important to figure out what to do in that situation so the transgender person doesn't feel excluded or discriminated against.
Could the statement be something like:
"The IUF is committed to providing an open and safe environment for people of all genders. Riders may register with the gender they identify most so as to provide the best possible convention for all. In cases where a rider's gender differs from their assigned gender at birth they are welcome (but not required) to consult the IUF or hosts as to which gender they should register as"
Not really sure if it hits all the spots but it at least does make it clear people can expect IUF to provide an open and safe environment.
Comment
No matter the final text, it should be clear that riders must choose either male or female as the gender they identify as.
Riders may register with the gender they identify most. Some people identify most with a non-binary idea of gender, however for our definition of gender for sport, it is binary. Thus: Riders may register with the gender (male or female) they identify most.
Comment
Yes, thanks for the addition Scott.
Comment
I don't think the 3 month IUF deliberation process has anything to do with a rider registering- they can register, but pending final decision on which category they can race in. However, as I stated earlier, it is likely outside the skill set of the IUF board to adjudicate on, so I'm happy to leave the IUF board out of it if possible.
With regard to this:
– Does the member’s gender in their “everyday life” match his or her racing gender
– Has the member obtained civil documents with his or her racing gender identified (i.e. state I.D., driver’s license, birth certificate)
– Attestation of gender identity from a medical professional
– Attestation of gender identity from a certified counselor, public official, school administrator, or other academic advisor
– ***Compliance with IOC guidelines***
***This is not consistent with the idea that we don't care about unfair advantage- the IOC guidelines have specific rules around testosterone levels in transgender athletes
What do people think of combining my option 2 and 3?
So something like:
"A rider may register with the gender with which the rider identifies most. If this is different from their assigned gender at birth, they must ensure that their gender choice will not give him/her an unfair advantage over other competitors.
If there is a rider(s) registered in a category which is different from their assigned gender at birth, the IUF recognises that there may be unfair advantages which are difficult to quantify. If such a rider(s) is in a medal position, the IUF will award two equivalent categories:
1) for gender inclusive of all who identify as that gender
and
2) for cis-gendered riders
Comment
I think Magnus is missing the point. He specifically says it's about inclusiveness but is quite happy for me to compete in women's high jump if my gender in everyday life matches what as the I regiser as. What about inclusiveness of non transgender competitors? I've specifically had female competitors complain about the advantage I have playing them in hockey. "How can we compete with you" I 100% agree too. But we don't have split competitions (yet).
Inclusivity goes both ways.
John misses the point because he thinks as long as a transgender person doesn't podium due to biological advantages it is ok that they beat Lower ranked competitors who don't have that biological makeup. That's like if I take performance enhancing drugs to improve my placing from 300th to 15th it doesn't matter because I didn't win.. I reckon it does matter to the people who below me who didn't get the luxury of PED. And what are we counting as mattering. Is age champion fine to win with the advantage?
The powerlifting Federation that had the transgender female break four world records in her class have come out afterwards and taken them back and say they will create a transgender class. I don't know if that is the best option here compared to the simple line which gets someone to consider their own biological advantage.
Comment
Sorry John, I don't think these two ideas are consistent:
Quote:
"I submit that this is likely to be an extremely rare occurrence in situations where a performance advantage may be perceived, and an even rarer occurrence of this happening in the elite ranks. I am inclined toward Magnus' approach, as one of inclusion, attention to rider privacy and additionally making the IUF look like the good guy. "
and
"The most likely negative scenario I see in all of this is a non-elite rider in racing events, where the parents of another rider complain about the "unfairness" of a trans rider that placed higher than their child in an event. I would be happy to be the person assigned to tell those parents to "suck it up". :-) "
We are being the 'good guy' to whom? If we don't have a policy when this happens, it will make everyone look bad, and there will be a lot of dissatisfied riders.
Comment
I am learning a lot from this discussion. :-P
I hereby un-volunteer to be the bad guy while trying to make the IUF look like the good guy. We need something better!
Scott brought up the part about needing to specify male or female for gender choice, which is a good catch. If we add something else in the future, that will change then. I like Ken's text above that offers to award two medals in questionable situations. I suggest it could also be said that "the IUF may award two different categories" to allow that decision to go either way. Also to cover Steven's previous quote, that this should possibly also be apply to placings below 3rd. While there are no medals for that, ranking matters to a lot of riders.
Also I suggest that the list of criteria, and everything beyond the most basic information from all the suggested text, not be included in the Rulebook but retained as material the IUF Board (and/or Hosts) can work with when these situations come up, up to an including the awarding of dual medals. Let's save that until it happens, rather than opening up a big can of worms before we even have a situation that calls for it.
Comment
I think we are a small enough sport that we can award an extra category without too much fuss. If you are lucky enough to have a transgender athlete competing in your category, you get two chances for a medal if you are not transgender.
No fussing with privacy or making decision on hormones/unfair advantage etc
Comment
Hi all, dropping in again, sorry I haven't been following this super closely as I've been busy with college.
To address Ken's suggestion:
From my own personal feelings, and many other trans people in other sports that I know, seperate categories for cis and trans competitors is a surefire way to create an environment in which a potential competitor that does not want to be publicly outed as trans never even enters the competition. It's also probably a pretty good way to make trans competitors who are publicly out not feel welcomed to enter aswell.
It puts emphasis on the cis competitors being the "real" men/women and alienates the trans/non-binary competitors. Just because you say it's equivalent, doesn't mean it feels or appears that way.
Would you want to be labeled as some "other" that can't compete against every other "normal" person?
It's fears over stuff like this that made me mostly leave the uni community itself after I started transitioning. I still ride, but mostly alone, and I don't make a huge effort to go compete. I want to go compete, but with this much controversy over wether or not people like me should be allowed to, or if we should be put in a 3rd category, it's pretty demoralizing.
Comment
Ken, I have been the Awards Director long enough to say absolutely NOT. It is NOT "simple" to add another award/category.
Sarah, Thank you. Your insight is the most useful and appreciated here.
Comment
I am very opposed to creating an additional category to separate trans and cis competitors. Sarah outlines many reasons above that make this clearly a bad idea.
I am in favor of the text that Magnus most recently proposed, with Scott's amendment. I also think that we should be really careful to avoid using him/her pronouns. It is much simpler to just use they. There are riders who prefer to use they/them/their pronouns but would still choose either male or female to compete as.
I also think that we need to recognize that at a certain point this just needs to come to a vote. Clearly there are opposing opinions in this discussion and people can vote accordingly. I am in favor of a statement that encourages all people, cis and trans, to compete. I urge people to remember that there are trans competitors competing now and it is more important to have some statement in the rulebook than nothing.
To be clear, this is the text I am in favor of:
"The IUF is committed to providing an open and safe environment for people of all genders. Riders may register with the gender they identify most (male or female) so as to provide the best possible convention for all. In cases where a rider's gender differs from their assigned gender at birth they are welcome (but not required) to consult the IUF or hosts as to which gender they should register as."
Comment
Quote Sarah:
From my own personal feelings, and many other trans people in other sports that I know, seperate categories for cis and trans competitors is a surefire way to create an environment in which a potential competitor that does not want to be publicly outed as trans never even enters the competition. It's also probably a pretty good way to make trans competitors who are publicly out not feel welcomed to enter aswell.
To be clear, the first category is an all inclusive one- ie 'All females'. Yes, adding an extra category for cis-gender competitors is a problem if it discourages competition from trans-gender competitors who are not public about their status.
However, is there any way of separating male/female advantage if 1)We can't collect information due to privacy issues and 2) It is very difficult to make a decision on this
If the agreement is that transgender competitors should be allowed to compete irrespective of whether they have an unfair advantage over cis-gendered athletes, then I think we need to state that is our position clearly. There is nothing to be gained from consulting with the IUF or hosts, so I would leave them out of it so they can defer (blame it on) the rulebook.
Going by Patricia's wording, I would delete the final sentence.
"The IUF is committed to providing an open and safe environment for people of all genders. Riders may register with the gender they identify most (male or female) so as to provide the best possible convention for all. In cases where a rider's gender differs from their assigned gender at birth they are welcome (but not required) to consult the IUF or hosts as to which gender they should register as."
The question becomes...are we providing the best convention for all? We'll have to wait until after it happens to find out.
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Sarah what is your feeling about the fact that the "average" person with biological male traits has a physical advantage (strength/power/height) over the "äverage" person with biological female traits? Does it concern you that a large number of competitors in the female category will struggle to compete physicality wise? (strength/power/height)
I am specifically talking about physical advantages here not about skill, it is technically possible for a biological female athlete to have greater skill than a biologically male athlete. However if you get two athletes who have equal skill levels generally the physically superior athlete will be the winner and a biologically female athlete may need to display more skill than a biological male athlete to beat them. Also I am talking about the ''average" female and male as I realise there is a range of natural physical ability in both males and females. The fact that almost professional or elite sport has better better world records and times set by males than females suggests that the average biological male competitor still beats the average biological female competitor.
E.g. At unicon in 2016, 44 males could jump 90cm high to platform, 1 female jumped over 75cm (with a jump of 90cm). If competing in trials/high jump, at some point the addition of biological male traits AND skill likely becomes too important.
If there was a 90cm stack of pallets as the first obstacle in a trials line only a single female would have been able to make it onto the start of the line, compared to 44 males who would have. If even only 4 of those males competed as transgender females they would most likely take 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the female high jump competition and have a chance to finish the line that the other females couldn't start.
I 100% believe in inclusiveness, I feel bad for the girls I play in hockey and perhaps we should see if we have the numbers (and the females would prefer it) to hold a female competition. But surely inclusiveness/fairness goes both ways?
I am keen to hear your thoughts as you would be the one directly competing with the other females.
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@Ken The question becomes...are we providing the best convention for all? We'll have to wait until after it happens to find out.
As a percentage of total competitors we arguably are not providing the best convention for all r.e. my example above. HOWEVER, if cisgender female competitors don't mind competing on a different playing field then it probably doesn't matter.
Basing it off some of the news/twittter reports of elite cisgender females who have been upset at not being able to compete in their events "fairly" there are many competitors who care. But perhaps our sport is still not competitive enough for people to care yet.
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I am also very strongly against the idea of separate awards for cis and trans riders (or all and cis riders, or any other separation) for the exact reasons Sarah listed above. It is in no way inclusive, it is by definition a distinction, and reminds me of the horrid "separate but equal" policies of separatist American history with regards to race.
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By that definition it is 'separatist' to offer both 'male' and 'female' categories. If we are make no distinction, we should only offer a single competition category.
A 'people' category- it would be inclusive of all.
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Steven,
Speaking only from the women's side,
Personally I'd put myself in the "average" category. From my experience in bicycling, I don't think I have any noticeable advantage over other women competitors. I'm taller, and generally heavier, which means that my power to weight ratio is harder to keep up. 5 years of estrogen HRT has significantly decreased my full effort power, made it significantly harder to gain and maintain muscle mass, despite which, I'm still usually 20-40 pounds heavier than other competitors. Furthermore, women at the velodrome have had no problem with myself and a number of other trans women racing with them, same with Enduro and Downhill MTB.
Speaking formerly from the men's side, I would have had zero problem with a trans man competing with me, even if he was taking testosterone HRT, and not because I think I could have beat him because he may have been smaller than me.
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As for your example of taking the four male competitors in high jump and comparing their results to the women's high jump, I think it's an unfair comparison to just directly compare previous years performance. if these hypothetical competitors did take the effort to transition, I'd still welcome them to compete against me, even if they had not done HRT. If they had, I feel there would be even less argument as their results would not be comparable to their previous results.
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Hi Sarah, the discussion (and latest proposals) has evolved to exclude testosterone lowering requirement because of privacy issues, notwithstanding the fact that other sports struggle to quantify male advantage.
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Sarah
The current proposal doesn't involve anything to do with ensuring testerosterone lowering or transitioning has occured. It also also questionable whether just lowering testerosterone reduces advantage, as I've mentioned before, height with basketballers and volleyballers is not reduced after HRT and though HRT may make it harder to gain and maintain muscle mass it doesn't mean the resultant level is not higher than the average cisgender females, just that it is below males.
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Sarah, thank you for coming back and offering your insight, which is more valuable than the rest of us put together. It would be nice to meet you at a future uni event. :-)
We are none of us equal; we are all different, with varying levels of hormones, body mass indexes, physical proportions, levels of skill, experience, etc. I have won races in the past in spite of poor fitness, because of superior experience. Is that not unfair to riders that weren't even born when I started doing these races? We all have inherent advantages and disadvantages, like our genetics.
But what do we do with that? I think we choose to live up to the part of the proposal we all seem to agree on, that the IUF "is committed to providing an open and safe environment...". While leaving an opening for the IUF to intervene if an extreme case arises, why not stick with the basic sentiment, and leave it at that? The further we get from allowing people to compete as their identified gender, the less inclusive we will be.
I'm for keeping it simple
In the hopefully extremely rare case where an athlete is way off the typical curve, we can consider offering a separate award in an event where possibly a majority of everybody sees an undue advantage. This is not the same as offering a separate category, which I would never be in favor of. I think of the duplicate award as a way of being inclusive but also being equitable. But not to advertise any of this, just to make our statement of inclusivity, respect riders' privacy to the absolute maximum we possibly can (in other words, don't ask, wait to be asked). Over time, I think the world will develop more cohesive ways to respect transgender athletes and help everyone fit in a way that works for all.
A suggestion on him/her vs. they/their: I would try to just use "rider", "athlete" or person.
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I think inclusiveness and equality are what we are aiming for, and as I said at the start of this discussion, I do not think we'll ever be able to implement a rule that's good enough for all. I also strongly agree with others that we should not have a separate award.
Steve has some strong points on how a rule based on this discussion could be unfair on other competitors, and I totally agree with him. Although there may not be a clear difference in performance between genders (I'm not including testosterone lowering here, as we cannot test this due to reasons above (I'm also no expert on this)) in some competitions, for other competitions it could make a huge difference. In this case, although it may be fair and inclusive for some, it could be that it is no longer fair and inclusive for others.
"Is that not unfair to riders that weren't even born when I started doing these races?" - @John: this is very different, and we have age categories for most events anyway.
As we can't test for testosterone lowering, what is the IUF to do if a competitor (of any gender... Even if the individual recognizes themselves as a different gender (excuse the broad terms here)) contests against another competitor? Would the IUF remove an award/placing from someone because they consider the competitor a bit too tall? Would this only happen if the individual were to win or if the individual comes last? Without the funds and required expertise, I do not see how a new rule can be implemented to ensure the IUF is committed to providing an open and safe environment for people of all genders.
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John
We are none of us equal; we are all different, with varying levels of hormones, body mass indexes, physical proportions, levels of skill, experience, etc. I have won races in the past in spite of poor fitness, because of superior experience. Is that not unfair to riders that weren't even born when I started doing these races? We all have inherent advantages and disadvantages, like our genetics.
Beating inexperienced children is not really comparable to this. Experience can be gained through practice, you cant practice increasing your height.
As people improve their training and become more serious about competition the number of events where a 50+ year old's decades of "experience" will be able to beat a 25 year old at peak fitness who also has a decent base of say 5-10 years of experience is low.
There are only a few events where this experience may still be more valuable such as slow race, still stand and these events are only "recommended" at unicon.
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Single person anecdotes are not meaningful. We are talking about the normal distributions here. So what if John or Sarah or Steven or myself could beat, or get beaten by, someone else of the opposite or same gender?
There is sufficient gender difference that almost all sports have separate male and female categories. Likewise there are subcategories like age groups and weight divisions.
If gender differences don't matter, which is what is being implied, we should only offer a single competition category. Offering male and female categories is discriminatory for the same reason that separating 'all female' and 'cis-gendered female' categories is discriminatory.
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Single person anecdotes are not meaningful. We are talking about the normal distributions here. So what if John or Sarah or Steven or myself could beat, or get beaten by, someone else of the opposite or same gender?
There is sufficient gender difference that almost all sports have separate male and female categories. Likewise there are subcategories like age groups and weight divisions.
If gender differences don't matter, which is what is being implied, we should only offer a single competition category. Offering male and female categories is discriminatory for the same reason that separating 'all female' and 'cis-gendered female' categories is discriminatory.
This is well put, either gender differences don't play any role in potential performance and we shouldn't split the competition into male and female, or gender differences do play a role in potential performance in which it seems that unfair that a competitor with biologically male physiology will be competing against biologically female physiology. Surely you cant argue both.
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Just to be clear: anecdotes are not data but they're better than nothing. It's clear there's differences in male and female performance but it's not exactly clear where it's an advantage and where it's not. For the younger kids the difference may not be all that big in the first place and for the age groups through puberty girls are typically bigger and stronger anyways.
It's very clear in freestyle that girls have a better chance of mastering a host of tricks than boys and often master them better (because of better motoric skills). In a competition like trials there's a clear advantage to being stronger, so if "advantage" is the measure how should we place someone that wants to compete in both competitions?
Since the "advantage" will have to be considered both with respect to which events a rider compete in and which age group a rider will compete in I don't see any way out of the more inclusive (to transgender competitors) approach.
To quote Sarah:
It's fears over stuff like this that made me mostly leave the uni community itself after I started transitioning. I still ride, but mostly alone, and I don't make a huge effort to go compete. I want to go compete, but with this much controversy over wether or not people like me should be allowed to, or if we should be put in a 3rd category, it's pretty demoralizing.
I think we can go by the more inclusive approach. We're failing as a community if transgender riders don't feel welcome in the community. "Advantage" is not clear throughout the competitions and regardless people will choose to compete where they have more "advantage" to better their chances of winning, which will further murk the waters.
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Anecdotes of are Advantagenot useful when you have data Magnus. Which we have. Look at finishing times from races or lines completed in trials. Male advantage over females is clear in most events where we have world records as the male records are faster/higher. It is not clear in some events like freestyle and it's not likely a difference in events such as slow races and still stand.
We have plenty of data showing it occurs in many events.
And let's be clear you support inclusiveness for transgender females but not cisgender females.
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Anecdotes of are Advantagenot useful when you have data Magnus. Which we have. Look at finishing times from races or lines completed in trials. Male advantage over females is clear in most events where we have world records as the male records are faster/higher.
That is true. We don't have data on transgender competitors (since lots of other things factor in too) though and there's many other factors at play there.
It is not clear in some events like freestyle and it's not likely a difference in events such as slow races and still stand.
So why is it those events are still being divided by gender while events where it arguably could mean more (hockey, basket) isn't? I guess for those events that are split it's about tradition and cultural norms and less about any physical differences. For those team events that are not split (even though there's very good reason to suggest they should be) it's equally about tradition and cultural norms within those events.
A split that may be more interesting is freestyle/x-style contra flatland. You can use the same tricks for both and there isn't really a difference in what can be learned between the genders. There's still a difference in the tricks shown and so it's pretty clear people will consider their peers to be from their own gender more than the other gender. It seems like an easy place for inclusion.
And let's be clear you support inclusiveness for transgender females but not cisgender females.
I guess you can say that, however cisgender women clearly know what to register as and transgender women are not sure if there's really space for them at our events as mentioned above. The issue can't really evolve until we have more transgender women get involved and we can learn more from their and their competitors' perspective.
I don't think we really end at a different place at the end of the day. If there's no difference in performance (freestyle/stillstand/flatland/etc) it's easy enough to be open. If there is a difference we really haven't created any criterias to go by, which makes it discriminatory or exclusive by default. If it's exclusive or discriminatory there'll be fewer transgender competitors and so we won't learn. Regardless we get can revisit the issue after every Unicon anyways.
Another option is to include clear criteria, for instance going by IOC guidelines. That's also going to be problematic since we would then have to test ALL female competitors to see if they're XY or XX (or something else), something that presents its own set of issues.
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We have had many interesting discussions, comments. Time for a vote.