Transgender quandary

By Kimberley Cummins

Barbados sports administrators are being challenged to be proactive with the imposition of regulations and policies to avoid biological female athletes being disadvantaged by transgender athletes.

While world debate persists about the competitive fairness of athletes who transition from male to ‘female’ being included in female sports, it hasn’t begun in Barbados yet. However, former head coach of the Sports Academy at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Roland Butcher, and president of the Barbados Body Building Association Dr. Alfred Sparman, believe such is inevitable. Both noted the importance of local administrators getting the ball rolling in laying out a strategic plan to meet the challenge when it does arrive.

Their comments were made against the background of a number of states in America considering a ban on trans-girls in women’s sports. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has recently made it clear that he does not “think that biological males should be competing in female sporting events”. This position was also echoed by transgender Olympic gold medallist Caitlin Jenner last year when she said: “It just isn’t fair. And we have to protect girls’ sports in our schools.”

Butcher stressed that local administrators need to plan now rather than wait until the issue arrives on Barbados’ doorstep to be “scrambling”.

“We see the rest of the world is doing whatever they have to do now, so, eventually it will come to Barbados. Barbados is not cut off from the rest of the world, the world is a smaller place now and administrators here have to address this now and be prepared. It is not something they want to face. They are going to bury their heads in the sand because they don’t want to face this reality. A lot of our people bury our heads in the sand and hope that it goes away and never comes, invariably it does, it’s just – when? Some people would hope it doesn’t come during their time but administrators have to confront it,” Butcher maintained during an interview with Barbados TODAY.

Last year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) introduced a new trans-inclusion framework which places the responsibility of establishing guidelines for trans inclusion on each individual sport. In addition, it proposed that eligibility rules for transgender and intersex athletes follow 10 principles: inclusion, prevention of harm, non-discrimination, fairness, no presumption of advantage, evidence-based approach, primacy of health and bodily autonomy, stakeholder-centered approach, right to privacy and periodic reviews. The IOC also concluded that sporting bodies should not assume that transgender women have an inherent advantage over cisgender women, nor should transgender women have to reduce their testosterone levels to compete.

However, Sparman, told Barbados TODAY that to maintain a level playing field, biological female athletes should not have to compete against their trans counterparts whom he said were, by their biological genotype even if they took hormone treatments to reduce testosterone levels, physically stronger than a female with XX chromosomes.

“I have a problem with it because this testosterone surge that we get after puberty in males is a serious, serious surge and it is this testosterone that would give them an advantage over women who would be considered cisgender. . . . Testosterone itself allows your bones to get larger and stronger, it causes your muscle mass to increase and the strength of your muscle is increased, your hemoglobulin levels are increased. Even right now in bodybuilding we got a problem all the time with guys who take extra doses of similar drugs like testosterone because it gives them an advantage. . .. That is why they group people according to ages because they know after certain stages in life in males you have a higher level of testosterone in your body and then it means you would have a stronger advantage over the younger people. So, for a transgender female now taking part in women’s sports, bottom line is they will have an advantage and I don’t think it is fair,” Dr. Sparman said.

Butcher, a former England cricketer and Barbados Cricket Association administrator, argued similarly and voiced support for trans-athletes competing in their own circuit. But he said that where the numbers are not sufficient, they should compete in the category according to the gender they were assigned at birth.

Both raised concern that if transgenders were allowed to compete against biological females it could possibly open the door to people who for example, were unsuccessful as male athletes transitioning to female just to capitalize on their physical advantage. To this point, Dr. Sparman, who has been a medical practitioner for more than 30 years, said there were no laws governing sports in Barbados currently to prevent a transgender athlete from challenging the status-quo.

“We haven’t addressed that issue. So, when that happens it will be a first happening and we will be scrambling. So, we have a problem and I think at this time, law makers and sports administrators should get together and start working this out. They can’t put everything in place but at least think about this stuff and be ready for it,” Sparman added.

Butcher noted the possibility that the inclusion could lead to unscrupulous tactics to improve athletic performances.

Butcher said: “I would hate to feel that I was assisting something like that. It is the same reason why people take performance enhancement drugs in sports. They are obviously not happy with their level of performance so they take it for increased performance. So, would the same thing happen in this case? I would hope not. I would hope that people won’t be so vain. I would hate to be encouraging something like that. . . It is very possible because you only need one person to do something and the others will follow. . . It is a very ticklish topic. If there were enough athletes for transgender events then that certainly would be a fairer way of gauging their performance against transgender females.”