Transgender people in sports

The participation of transgender people in sports, a traditionally sex-segregated institution, is a controversial issue, particularly the inclusion of transgender women and girls in women's sports.

Quotes

• One of the primary objectives of trans sports activists is to normalize their theory of gender fluidity as settled fact. They sometimes resort to ruthless tactics in order to chill discourse that pushes back against their dogmas. They have de-platformed speakers, such as outspoken feminist Meghan Murphy. They have mobbed opponents on social media and, often successfully, demanded that their accounts be blocked (it helps that platforms like Twitter and Facebook are sympathetic to gender ideology). They have organized campaigns to cripple or end the careers of pre-eminent sexologists, including Dr. Kenneth Zucker, former director of the Gender Identity Clinic at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. And they have ensure that trans activists constitute an influential presence on committees tasked with providing gender identity guidelines in education, jurisprudence, social services, and yes, sport. They label anyone in the media who opposes their claims as "transphobic." Observant readers will have noticed that, in the last few years, the mainstream media have lost heart for engagement on this front and have largely ceded the field to the gender theorists.
  • Linda Blade & Barbara Kay, Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport (2021), pp. 16, 17

• We cannot fit a multi-gender world into a two-gender system of sports.
• Some may feel super woke to say that transgender women athletes belong in female sports, but let me tell you as a biologist, in terms of muscle mass, transgender women have similar advantages over females as male athletes do, even with testosterone suppression therapy, therefore, it is not enough to simply acknowledge transgender as a distinct gender, we must also make necessary alterations to our preexisting societal fields, such as setting up transgender category in sports, where performance is predicated on physiological attributes, so that in an attempt to vest upon the transgender population their long-overdue fundamental rights, we do not start treating other genders unfairly without even being aware of it. Remember, replacing one wrong with another is not rightness. Our purpose is to preserve the rights of everyone, not to change the shape of the violation of those rights.
  • Abhijit Naskar, Hometown Human: To Live for Soil and Society (2021)

• What we have is a speculative fear of something that hasn't materialized. They're acting like LeBron James is going to put on a wig and play basketball with fourth graders.
  • Chase Strangio, "Quote of the Day", The New York Times (30 March 2021)

• I believe in fairness. I also believe in inclusiveness. I do not believe however that transgender women have the right to compete against me or any other gender-born women regardless of their age.
  • Jean Schmidt, Second Hearing of Ohio’s HB61, quoted in "10 Quotes From Second Hearing of Ohio’s HB61, the "Save Women’s Sports Act"", The Buckeye Flame (24 June 2021)

• Girls deserve equal opportunity to compete and achieve in sports. The Biden administration’s reinterpretation of Title IX is a slap in the face to young women and girls, telling them their hard work, on-field achievements, and athletic futures do not matter. Title IX was designed to stop discrimination and ensure equal athletic opportunities for women. By allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports the Biden administration will be reversing 50 years of progress for women. H.R. 734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 strengthens the law’s existing protections for women, ensures a level playing field for female athletes, and protects the law from the Biden administration’s radical regulatory scheme.
  • U. S House of Representatives, Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act (2023)