The Alberta government, led by Premier Danielle Smith, recently tabled three bills that, if passed, could restrict the rights of transgender people in the province. These proposed policies are not only anti-trans but anti-evidence.
One of these is Bill 29, the Fairness and Safety in Sport Act. If passed, it would require school boards, post-secondary institutions, independent academic institutions and provincial sports organizations to establish athlete eligibility policies to “protect the integrity of female athletic competitions by ensuring women and girls have the opportunity to compete in biological female-only divisions.”
The government calls the bill “a balanced approach” that would also ensure “transgender athletes are able to meaningfully participate in the sports of their choice.”
However, this legislation would task organizations with excluding transgender and gender-diverse people from fairly and equitably participating in sport. It would also prevent transgender people from taking legal action against the government, institutions or individuals responsible for implementing discriminatory requirements.
Bill 29 has sparked significant concerns. Advocacy organizations are pointing to how it would violate citizens’ fundamental freedoms. U Sports, the governing body for Canadian university sports, has stated it is unlikely to bring future championship competitions to Alberta if the bill becomes law.
The myth of biological advantage
Legislation like Bill 29 is based on a widespread myth that transgender women have an inherent biological advantage that threatens the integrity and fairness of women’s athletic competitions. This myth is not based on fulsome scientific and sociocultural evidence.
While some scientific studies argue transgender women have an advantage, researchers have shown these studies are often methodologically flawed and use limited biological data. For example, studies rarely adjust for height and lean body mass and make a false equivalency between testosterone levels and athletic performance despite there being no consistent evidence testosterone levels predict performance.
Anti-trans sport policies are bound to fail because the idea of two sexes, like two genders, is a social construction and not a biological fact. Humans have significant biological variations and there are no strict measures that can determine maleness or femaleness. In addition, there is no direct and consistent research to show that transgender women (or transgender men) have an athletic advantage in sport.
Anti-trans policies like Bill 29 rely on flawed scientific studies and, despite using the language of fairness, ignore research that demonstrates how trans people, and especially trans women, are disproportionately affected by health, economic and social disparities.
The trouble with categories
Transgender people’s participation in sport has become a key “culture war” issue, and a political lightning rod not only in Alberta and Canada but elsewhere in the world.
Bill 29 stems from a long and ongoing history of policing women athlete’s bodies. The women’s category was created because of the historical exclusion of women from competitive sport. After women organized their own competitions, sports institutions dominated by male officials included them in select events while implementing gender policing and sex-testing practices. Since 1925, these practices have included requirements for women athletes to hold medical certificates attesting to their sex, nude parades, chromosome screening and testosterone-based sex testing.
The common explanation given for such gender policing and sex-testing practices are concerns about “gender fraud” and people assigned male at birth competing in women’s sport; similar rhetoric to what we hear today.
However, historians and social scientists have shown how these practices have been shaped by geo-political concerns, racism and misogyny, privileging particular dominant white western gender norms and visions of femininity and treating athletes unfairly.
Today, while systematic sex-testing of women in international competitions has ceased, gender policing and sex-testing practices continue.
These practices commonly target female athletes with hyperandrogenism (intersex or intersexualized athletes) and disproportionately target women of colour from the Global South. It’s time for something new.
Re-categorizing sport
The male and female categories in sport do not reflect the diversity of gender or biological sex and are based on limiting beliefs about our bodies. It is time to meaningfully consider what it could mean to re- or uncategorize sport.
Re-categorizing sport could include renaming gendered/sexed categories. This approach moves away from gendered language while recognizing the barriers that women/girls and people of other marginalized genders experience in sport.
One option is to rename the men’s/boy’s category to “open” and the women’s/girl’s category to “women/girls and gender-diverse people.” The former would be open to people of all genders, while the latter open to people who are women/girls (cisgender and transgender), transfeminine, non-binary, gender diverse, transmasculine and trans men.
Uncategorizing sport could mean removing gendered categories altogether. Some sports, such as quadball, do not use gendered/sexed categories. This sport only considers gender identity and uses a “maximum gender rule” for how many players of one gender can be on the field at once.
The lack of specific gendered language creates space for players of all genders to participate. While an imperfect model — players are still required to share their gender — it provides another way of thinking beyond the binary.
What you can do
Bill 29 directly impacts transgender people, their safety and access to sport. It is incumbent for all people to learn more about the histories of gender policing and sex-testing in sports.
We must also practice active allyship and “accompliceship”: if you are a coach or teammate, work alongside transgender players to advocate with them and challenge harmful organizational cultures and policies.
Don’t fall silent: when you hear people spreading misinformation, try to guide them to the right information. If you hear others making derogatory remarks about a transgender teammate, stand up for them. Remind people that transgender individuals are not the first marginalized group to experience political and social segregation, and we can learn from history instead of repeating it.
Eva Bošnjak, an independent scholar specializing in trans inclusion and critical sport studies, also co-authored this article.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
