In September of 2022, a women’s high school volleyball game was held in North Carolina, wherein a trans athlete spiked a ball that unfortunately hit opposing, cis athlete, Payton McNabb, in the face. As seen in the first video included in the tweet, McNabb promptly collapses, having sustained a concussion and a neck injury from the impact. And as seen in the second included video, McNabb now dedicates her time to advocating against the inclusion of trans women in sports, using her injuries as evidence that it endangers cis women like herself. But she’s not the only one with thoughts on this topic, as her situation sparked much new controversy over a long-debated issue: How we include and place trans athletes in sports.
When it comes to this matter, the knee-jerk response for a lot of people is to get defensive. Often, people attempt to simplify it, reducing everyone and everything down to hormone levels, so it becomes this issue of testosterone vs estrogen. Their argument relies heavily on this belief that cis women are weak and delicate, and therefore must be protected from their testosterone-having, “biologically advantaged” trans counterparts. We can see a lot of these arguments online, especially from those who label themselves as trans exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs. For those who may not know, TERFs are self-proclaimed “feminists” who believe trans people don’t really exist, and therefore, push for the exclusion of trans women from female spaces. Of course, the poster girl for this belief, especially when it comes to sharing opinions online, is author J.K. Rowling, but there are thousands of other instances of these beliefs on the internet. For example, a large California-based blog under the name Women Are Real, aligns themself with this belief. They dedicate their forum to posting anti-trans sentiments, including many stories of trans female athletes, always making a point to misgender any trans individuals in the process despite their claims of not being transphobic. Online presences like these, along with that of Payton McNabb, also frequently speak in support of the recent “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” online, which is a bill that reinforces a ban of all trans women from women’s sports. They also tend to speak in support of other restrictions on women’s sports, like the testosterone limit set by the Olympics for their female athletes.
If you’d like to take a closer look at the Women Are Real blog, click here: https://womenarereal.org
Or you can look at their twitter page here: https://x.com/WomenAreReals?s=20
And if you’d like to read the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” in full, click here:
https://dashboard.ncleg.gov/api/Services/BillSummary/2023/H574-SMBE-85(e3)-v-2
My, along with many others’, issue with this viewpoint is that it masks blatant transphobia as mere “protection,” or in this case, “fairness” for women, in addition to enforcing a small-minded idea of what women are. TERFs online are always quick to jump to the defense of Payton McNabb and other athletes they believe have been wronged by trans opponents in the name of “protection” yet are completely silent when it comes to real issues many women face in sports, such as sexual assault and harassment, equal pay, and a general lack of representation. They preach this idea of “fairness” for women, and yet, do nothing when female Black and African American athletes are disproportionately affected by the aforementioned testosterone limits in women’s sports. In recent years, athletes like Barbra Banda, Christine Mboma, and Beatrice Masilingi, just to name a few, have been barred from competing in their respective Olympic events due to their natural testosterone levels being deemed not that of a “healthy woman with ovaries.” These women and so many more have trained all their lives for this, just to get there and be told they’re “too masculine.” How is that fair? You can read more about them and their stories with the links below:
Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57748135
Barbra Banda:
It’s a well-known fact that both hormones, testosterone and estrogen, can exist at varying levels for both sexes depending on a variety of factors. It’s a simple truth that some women just have more testosterone naturally, giving them what some may consider to be more masculine traits, like thicker body hair, a deep voice, and more muscle mass. This doesn’t make them any less female. Yet, they’re still being actively discriminated against in the sports scene, leaving myself and many others to pose the question: Fairness for who? If anti-trans rules are now limiting not only trans women, but cis women as well, who are these laws really there for? Who are they meant to protect, if you can even still allow yourself to frame it that way? It’s clear to see that those in support of these restrictions, along with the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” don’t care about women; All they care about is pushing down the women who don’t fit their narrow minded, patriarchal view of what a woman “should be” and what hormones a woman “should have,” even when faced with actual, scientific fact. The issue on the table cannot simply be boiled down to male vs female, or testosterone vs estrogen, or even trans vs cis. This is a dynamic, deeper-seeded issue stemming from the harmful perception society has on sex and gender and calls for a much-needed reevaluation for how we think of such.
So, to finish off, I ask you to do some self-reflection. To you, what makes a woman? What makes a man? How do we define and break up those categories now, and how can we expand or add to them to properly account for the ever-evolving gender spectrum? And in the meantime, keep up with the news surrounding female athletics. Learn the names and stories of those disqualified for various reasons, and question everything that claims to “protect” women. Who does it limit, and in that, who does it really protect? The answer may not always be as simple as it seems.