Transgender athletes belong in strength sports. Transgender athletes belong in sports generally. There has been quite a bit of rhetoric surrounding who can participate in which sports circulating within both domestic and international dialogue lately. While this is not a new topic, new regulatory and legislative efforts have been brought forth by several governing bodies and in many states. These efforts seek to restrict many facets of the trans experience, from whether trans athletes are welcome in sports to the legality of being trans itself. These facets are part of the same issue. The debate about who can participate in sport shares a direct relationship with people who seek to vilify and negate the basic human dignity of transgender folx generally. This is unacceptable. Transgender athletes are athletes. They are worthy and they belong on the platform. Make space.
 
This article represents the first of a handful that will explore the ideas of who is welcome on the platform. Who is welcome in strength sport? Which bodies are valued in sports? Which bodies are able to move through the world in a particular way? Whose bodies do we judge and denigrate, and whose do we laud? This series of articles will explore many identities, as well as the intersectionality of identity and how it impacts not only the human experience, but the athletic experience. The athletic experience is a part of the human one. As weightlifters, we understand this. Thus, to suggest that the stakes of excluding trans athletes from sport are not that high is a false argument. This is why this topic bears specific addressing.
 
For the purposes of understanding this and forthcoming articles, let’s go over a few terms! To be cisgender means to identify as the gender you were assigned at birth. To be transgender means to identify as a gender other than that you were assigned at birth. This “assigned” designation is important. The best parents and doctors can do when a baby is born is identify which genitals it has. (And, there are plenty of intersex conditions where neither female nor male external genitalia are exclusively or fully present.) Biological sex is a less black-and-white construct than many have been led to believe! Scientific American wrote a fascinating article on this topic titled “Sex Redefined,” which is included in the references section below. A transgender woman may identify as a woman who was assigned male at birth (AMAB), while a transgender man may identify as a man who was assigned female at birth (AFAB). (It’s also worth noting that “female” and “male” are sex terms, while “woman,” “girl, “man,” and “boy” are gender terms.)
 
But! It’s not as simple as swapping sides in a gender binary. Gender is, indeed, non-binary. Think of it as a spectrum or some sort of radial continuum where qualities like masculinity and femininity, or the lack thereof, all occupy some sort of amorphous space where a person has the agency to identify with whatever is meaningful to them. That’s gender. Gender encompasses numerous identity categories and labels, including transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, gender-non-conforming, gender-expansive, and a host of others. There are myriad resources that can help anyone, especially someone questioning their gender identity and/or presentation, navigate the glorious amorphousness that is gender.
 
For the purposes of sport, gender is typically broken down into a binary and there is an assumption that a person engaging in a sport as a particular gender was also assigned that gender at birth. Put otherwise, there is cis-sexism at play in the sport realm, meaning there is a basic assumption that all athletes are cisgender. It may be a simplistic system, but it has been a functional one for the purposes of sport, even as it is problematic within the larger sphere of identity and personhood. Trans athletes challenge this system.
 
Somewhat ironically, there are many sports where the hypersimplistic gender binary is denied to trans athletes. Instead of letting trans folx self-identify their gender, there are weird regulations that ultimately make it hard for these athletes to participate in sports. In a recent article, CCN’s Lauren Holt writes that “[m]uch of the legislation that is pending or has been adopted restricts athletes’ participation in public school sports to the gender that matches the sex that athletes were assigned at birth. But it’s not possible to know a person's gender identity at birth, and ?for some people, the sex listed on their original birth certificate is a misleading way of describing the body they have.” The article goes on to highlight the following examples: In Idaho, a bill was passed and then blocked by a federal judge that would ban trans girls from sports. In Mississippi, trans women were prevented from participating in women’s sports as of March of this year. In Tennessee and Arkansas, students can only participate in school sports teams that align with their sex assigned at birth, not their gender.
 
This is unacceptable, and it has implications beyond participation in school sports, or sports generally. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) points out that “[t]he marginalization of trans student athletes is rooted in the same kind of gender discrimination and stereotyping that has held back cisgender women athletes. … [T]ransgender athletes – particularly Black transgender girls and women – face systemic barriers to participation in athletics and all aspects of public life. … There’s a word for that: Discrimination. When misinformation about biology and gender is used to bar transgender girls from sports it amounts to the same form of sex discrimination that has long been prohibited under Title IX, a law that protects all students – including trans people – on the basis of sex.” That the ACLU explicitly mentions the additional barriers facing women of color is worth noting, and this theme will be picked up in a subsequent article. Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color (oftentimes referred to as BIPOC) experience an intersectionality of identities that oftentimes presents additional barriers as they navigate their lives and activities, including sports.
 
The examples above relate to school sports. I believe the prevalence of arguments surrounding trans participation in school sports is in part due to the fact that childhood is a crucible of personhood development, and much attention is generally given to the well-being and development of children and youth. However, there is also an insidious side to this. Childhood is often revered as a “sacred period” in which children need “protection,” which may be superficially true, but which is also often mis-construed and -used to protect only a particular type of child, namely, one who meets dominant culture cisheterosexist norms, among others. Put otherwise, children and youth who are cisgender and straight are oftentimes seen as more deserving of protection than others. To borrow a phrase from the ACLU, there’s a word for that: Discrimination. (I would also add another word: Bigotry.)
 
This discrimination, beginning in the already gendered sphere of sport, can easily bleed into other areas of life, including general access to healthcare, gender-affirming programs, and other activities. There is a misunderstanding that trans and gender-expansive youth don’t really know who or what they are. In the words of Arkansas State Representative Lundstrum “[some kids] may choose to be transgender when they’re older. … That’s okay; [w]hen they're under 18, they need to grow up first. That’s a big decision, there’s no going back.” There are several things wrong with that statement. First off, LGBTIQA+ identity is not a choice. Trans individuals do not choose to be trans, they are trans. They may choose to come out, choose to transition, and choose to align their gender expression with their gender identity. Secondly, even if being LGBTIQA+ were a choice, as humans we all have agency to make whatever choices we want. I choose to compete in weightlifting, I choose to be queer, I choose to pet my dog. Don’t legislate me. Those are my politics. Very importantly in regards to Lundstrum’s statement; it is not based in scientific evidence. Both the American Psychiatric Association and The American Academy of Pediatrics have come out against legislative restriction to gender-affirming healthcare. Dr. Jack Turban, who works for Stanford University School of Medicine, states in the abovementioned CNN article that “[a]ll existing studies show that regret following gender-affirming medical care is rare.” More anecdotally, if a male child were assigned female at birth because his parents wanted a daughter, people would be outraged. They would totally endorse that child living “as himself” by presenting as a boy. Though that boy may still be a child, his agency in that decision would be upheld because it aligns with our dominant culture expectations surrounding sex and gender.
 
A recent New York Times article, which addresses notions of heterosexism and family structures, highlights the words of author Elisabeth Sheff, who states that “‘perversity’ [is] a luxury more readily available to those who are already members of dominant groups.” I agree that we are more forgiving of transgressions of dominant culture norms when the degree and number of those transgressions is limited. Perhaps due to the important role sports play in our culture, as well as persistent patriarchal expectations that women are oddities in the sphere of sports, it seems that the transgression of trans athletes in strength sports is deemed egregiously high. As such, many entities have taken steps to exclude and otherize them, especially when it comes to participation in sports such as powerlifting and weightlifting.
 
Part II of this article will explicitly explore the way gender iterates in the world of strength sports, and will highlight the progressive and not-so-progressive policies of various sport governing bodies. Until then, make space on the platform.