Book reviews

Brief, well-written and informative book on the issue of transgender sport

October 24, 2024

Lotta Wendel
Department of Criminology, Malmö University

*Helen E. Parker, Beth Hands & Elizabeth Rose*
**Women’s sport and transgender inclusion: The counter biological argument**
162 pages, paperback
Champaign, IL: Common Ground 2024 (Sport & Society | Sharp Ideas)
ISBN 978-1-957792-72-9

The other evening an old friend recounted a situation in his amateur handball team. They have long played with mixed teams, but now the group was split into a men’s and women’s team for a tournament. “I must admit that I felt uncomfortable with the team’s transgender woman now playing with only women. But then it became clear that they would be the goalkeeper, and I guess that is kind of OK”. My friend is usually a very eager and unrestrained debater from the left. But this experience was shared as if he had just confessed to hitting his child or getting caught for tax fraud. His views on inclusion clashed with his instinct to protect women. He looked very embarrassed indeed.

The inclusion of transpeople in sports is a very sensitive topic. On idrottsforum.org, the reader can find the contrasting views represented in texts by e.g., Miroslav Imbrišević and Kutte Jönsson. The former author insists that having a male body is decisive in competitive sports, while the latter – informed by postmodern theory – problematizes the idea of fixed sex categories and the implications for sports.

In a new book, Women’s Sport and Transgender Inclusion: The Counter Biological Argument, by Helen Parker, Beth Hands and Elizabeth Rose, the arguments considering transwomen’s inclusion in sport are analyzed. The authors emphasize a biological perspective, contending that previous discussions have placed excessive focus on sociological, gender-based, or psychological arguments.

The authors conclude that inclusion based on gender identity or reduced testosterone levels cannot deliver fair opportunities for women and girls in sport.

The book is a brave endeavor, especially considering that the writers are Australian researchers. Australia is one of the countries in the world where the ideology based on the precedence of gender identity over biological sex has gained a strong grip on society. The view that women sometimes need spaces free from or protected from biological men is widely regarded as “transphobic”. With that label, one risk being ostracized and persecuted, as seen in the cases of the liberal politician Moira Deeming in Victoria, the philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith at University of Melbourne, and the comedian Biddy O’Loughlin in Adelaide.

The core issue is whether transwomen should be regarded as women in every aspect. Recently, the Federal Court of Australia found that, according to Australian law, the answer is yes. In this case, Tickle vs Giggle, a transwoman was excluded from a women-only app. The judge found that the transwoman had been indirectly discriminated against because she, as a woman, did not appear sufficiently female to the defendant.[1] In this context it is provocative to state that women’s sport should solely be for those whose sex at birth is female.

The book starts off with a depiction of how central sporting bodies’ efforts to promote inclusion has led to the exclusion of women. Here, the authors also briefly outline some human rights documents and discrimination laws, showing how the amendment of “gender identity”, without clear definitions of the concept, have resulted in legal interpretive challenges and confusion. The biological argument is elaborated in chapters two and three. Here, the fact that men on average are stronger than women is underpinned by research and statistics, proving that females are biologically distinct from men. The differences regarding hormonal profiles, body composition and anatomy have strong implications for results, as well as safety, in sport.

One section is dedicated to describing the physiological features of humans born with differences in sex development (DSD), and among those the group previously referred to as intersex. Gender researchers often use this group to argue that sex is ambiguous and exists on a spectrum, while developmental biologists describe these rare genetic disorders as a biological subset of the two sex categories: male and female. Importantly, people with DSD should not be confused with transpeople, for which biological reality is irrelevant.

Chapter four deals with the unintended consequences of opening women’s sports for males, e.g., the lack of motivation when winning becomes impossible and males usurp female sports achievements, and the despair of not being listened to when sports become dominated by males. This doesn’t only apply to elite athletes, but affects girls and women at all levels.

In chapter five and six, possible paths forward in order to balance inclusion with fairness are discussed. The inclusion of transwomen in women’s sports calls for a careful analysis, including the biological argument. The authors conclude that inclusion based on gender identity or reduced testosterone levels cannot deliver fair opportunities for women and girls in sport. In accordance, they propose the two categories solution; female categories should only be open to those born female, regardless of how they identify (as long as they are not taking any male hormones). For others, an open category ought to be constructed.

This book is thin and handy, yet it covers an immense body of information. It is well-written and presented in a very accessible manner. It also includes two appendixes, available online. Since both lists contain information that is rapidly changing, it’s a good idea not to include them in the book itself. The first list details the transgender policies of sporting bodies, while the second is a compilation of presentations of 50 transgender athletes. This list is a response to the often-repeated argument that transwomen’s participation is a fringe phenomenon, not worth making a fuss about. As it turns out, it is not. Women Sports Policy Working Group, a bipartisan group of former elite athletes and sports administrators, including Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, stopped counting after a nine-month tally, where they had found 578+ male victories in female sports. A more comprehensive list, which is currently still being updated, shows several thousand examples of male athletes competing at the expense of female athletes’ success and opportunities.