The Onus of Inclusivity: Sport Policies and the Enforcement of the Women’s Category in Sport

Abstract

With recent controversies surrounding the eligibility of athletes with disorders of sex development (DSD) and hyperandrogenism, as well as continued discussion of the conditions transgender athletes must meet to compete in high-performance sport, a wide array of scholars representing a diverse range of disciplines have weighed in on both the appropriateness of classifying athletes into the female and male categories and the best practices of doing so. In response to cases of high-profile athletes’ sex (and gender) being called into question, the International Olympic Committee, the International Association of Athletics Federations, and the National Collegiate Athletics Association, among others, published or updated policies addressing who is eligible to compete in the women’s sport category and under what conditions. This paper addresses the areas in which philosophical reasoning and ethical analysis can contribute to reopened debates about the surveillance of the women’s category in sport. Emphasis is placed on determining where the onus of responsibility should fall for ensuring the new policies are followed.

• KEYWORDS
• gender
• inclusion
• fairness
• sport policy
• transgender
• intersex

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Pam R. Sailors for providing helpful feedback on drafts of this paper, and Thyra Shaw for assistance conducting a review of transgender sport policies.

Notes

1. To be eligible to compete in the opposite sex category from which he/she was assigned at birth, a transsexual athlete must complete sex reassignment surgery including external genital reconstruction (including gonadectomy for men transitioning to women), receive hormone therapy, have his/her sex legally recognized by his/her government, and participate in an evaluation of these criteria by a panel of experts to ensure the criteria have been met for at least two years. Athletes who transition before puberty are not held to the same requirements (IOC 2004).

2. See, for example, Bostick and Joyner 2012; Heggie 2010; Hercher 2010; Ritchie, Reynard, and Lewis 2008; and volume 20 of the Journal of Genetic Counseling (2011).

3. An exception is Nathaniel Champlin’s (1977) question in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, ‘Does being a transexual alter one’s status in athletics?’ (107); however, he did not articulate a response to that question before moving on to addressing other issues.

4. Several ethicists have addressed the issue in bioethics journals. See Camporesi and Maugeri 2010; Caplan 2010; Karkazis et al. 2012; Wonkham, Fieggen, and Ramesar 2010.

5. The term DSD is opposed by many people as it implies that a person is disordered and in need of correction by medical intervention.

6. See Torbjörn Tännsjö’s radical call for the abolition of sex divisions in elite sport (Tännsjö 2000).

7. The NCAA Policy on Transgender Student-Athlete Participation (2011) clarifies that trans males (female-to-male) can participate on men’s teams but not women’s teams if they are taking testosterone; if they are not using prescription hormones, they can participate on men’s or women’s teams. Trans females (male to female) must take testosterone suppression medication for a minimum of one year before being eligible to compete on women’s teams, but can compete on men’s teams in this time. Only one year of hormone therapy is required before male-to-female transgender athletes can compete on women’s teams, and there is no obligation to undergo sex reassignment surgery.

8. Hyperandrogenism refers to conditions where androgen production supersedes the typical range for women.

9. Discrepancies exist in the number of blood and urine samples Armstrong claims to have provided to anti-doping authorities, and the numbers acknowledged by the USA and international cycling federations and WADA. See (Hood 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Teetzel

University of Manitoba, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, 112 Frank Kennedy Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T2N2 Canada.