Transgender Athletes and International Sports Policy
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TRANSGENDER ATHLETES AND
INTERNATIONAL SPORTS POLICY
JOANNA HARPER*
I
INTRODUCTION
The current debate on whether biological sex or gender identity should be
paramount in determining who is male, or female has a profound impact when
applied to the world of sport. For most of the history of sport, some aspect of
sexual biology was used to differentiate male athletes from female ones. There
are, however, currently voices suggesting that no one biological component of
sex can unambiguously be used to draw a line between men and women, and
thus gender identity should become the method of choice when separating ath-
letes into male and female categories. In a 2017 essay for this journal and in my
2019 book Sporting Gender I acknowledge that sexual biology is not entirely
dimorphic, however, I suggest that one should use that aspect of biology and/or
gender that is most appropriate for the task at hand. In the world of sports, this
would entail using a biomarker that is important for sports performance differ-
ences between male and female athletes and is mostly dimorphic. My previous
reasoning on the issue of the division of male and female athletes underpins
much of what is discussed below.
The first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896 and no women compet-
ed in them. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, their founder, thought that the inclusion
of women would be impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect.'
However, during the 20 century women's participation gradually increased so
that now they make up nearly half of all Olympic competitors.2 Female repre-
sentation in elite sport is an important component of women's march towards
equality.
In most sports, women won't have the opportunity to be elite athletes with-
out a separate category based on sex. For instance, both the men's and women's
winners in the 1500 meters races in the Tokyo Games set Olympic records.
Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the men's race in 3:28.323, while Kenya's
Copyright © 2022 by Joanna Harper.
* PhD Candidate, School of Sport, Loughborough University
1. Women in Sport, NAT'L LIBRARY OF AUSTL., https://www.nla.gov.au/digital-classroom/year-7
/sport-and-australian-culture/women-sport [https://perma.cc/E9JT-YGY9].
2. Aaron O'Neill, Summer Olympics: Number of Athletes by Gender 1896-2020, STATISTA (2021),
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1090581/olympics-number-athletes-by-gender-since-1896/
[https://perma.cc/P78C-8B2R].
3. Jakob Ingebrigtsen, OLYMPICS.COM, https://olympics.com/en/athletes/jakob-ingebrigtsen
[https://perma.cc/98C3-ZTW7].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/lcp85&div=11&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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