Others, though, pushed back against the I.O.C.’s change of tone. Yannis Pitsiladis, a sports scientist who has served as the chair of the scientific commission of the International Sports Medicine Federation and on the I.O.C.’s own medical and scientific commission, told me that he welcomed the move away from a single approach for all sports, but balked at the decision to issue recommendations instead of specific rules—and at the suggestion that there should be no presumption of advantage for athletes who have undergone testosterone-driven puberty. He spearheaded a statement, signed by a number of prominent sports scientists, criticizing the I.O.C., and insisting that it was “well established in the literature” that the effects of testosterone are “responsible for much of the sex differences in sports performance between cisgender men and cisgender women.”
Harper, for her part, signed a statement issued by the International Federation of Sports Medicine, which asserted that, while testosterone suppression is imperfect, it remains the best biomarker for insuring fair competition in élite sports. She believes that no medical interventions should be required below the state championship or N.C.A.A. level, and she supports Thomas’s participation in collegiate swimming, she told me, given that Thomas has undergone two years of testosterone suppression. “I’m not saying testosterone is the only thing that matters,” Harper said. “But if you’re differentiating between male athletes and female athletes, you should use some factor that’s sexually dimorphic and is important for athletic performance. Testosterone is the best one that fits both of those.”
In January, the N.C.A.A. announced a new “sport-by-sport approach to transgender participation” in athletics, dropping the blanket requirement that trans women undergo a year of testosterone suppression, and leaving specific policies up to the national governing bodies of individual sports. The N.C.A.A. described this approach as in alignment with the changes made, the previous fall, by the I.O.C. But the N.C.A.A. did not produce a new formal framework of principles to guide each national body. Athlete Ally released a statement expressing alarm at the new policy, which the trans activist and athlete Chris Mosier described as “quickly assembled under pressure from people who don’t want to see a great athlete who is transgender succeed.” It was “clear,” Athlete Ally added, that trans athletes would be “subjected to invasive, painful and unnecessary medical procedures” and “burdened with the obligation of proving they have no inherent advantage instead of being viewed as human beings who have no desire to compete unfairly, only to participate in the sport they dedicate their lives to.”
A few days later, as Sports Illustrated subsequently reported, a former swimming champion and a Title IX lawyer named Nancy Hogshead-Makar organized a virtual meeting attended by more than two hundred and fifty people, including former Olympians, current collegiate swimmers and coaches, parents of Penn swimmers, and members of U.S.A. Swimming’s board of directors. The aim was to discuss legislation that would prohibit trans women from competing head-to-head with cisgender women in a number of collegiate sports, including swimming—perhaps even before Thomas had a chance to compete in the N.C.A.A. championships, in March. For a long time, Hogshead-Makar’s most notable causes had been equitable funding for women’s programs and the sexual abuse of women in sports. But three years ago, she had what she called an “aha” moment, when Congress was debating the Equality Act, which would ban both gender and sex discrimination—effectively, as she saw it, erasing the difference between the two concepts. She wanted a carve-out for competitive sports, insisting that Title IX was threatened from a legal perspective without it. Last year, she helped create the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, the stated aim of which is to find a “middle way” with regard to the participation of trans women in women’s sports. The group’s Web site touts the support of both Joanna Harper and Renée Richards, but none of the group’s members are trans, and its most famous member, Martina Navratilova, has angered many trans athletes and advocates with comments she has made in the past. (Harper told me that she has disagreements with the group’s positions, including on Thomas’s participation. She added, “I have not, however, formally withdrawn my name as a ‘supporter’ of the group. I think that more can be accomplished with dialogue than with debate.”)
It doesn’t matter that Lia Thomas is just one swimmer, Hogshead-Makar told me. To a lawyer, precedent is everything. “I’m not an expert on the science, but I am an expert in civil-rights law,” she said. The law when it comes to sports, she went on, “is we allow sex segregation because of biology. We don’t allow sex segregation for any other reason.” I suggested that the biology of sex differences between athletes was murky, and that the legacy effects of testosterone-driven puberty were not totally established or understood. She countered by sending me white papers by sports scientists, a PowerPoint presentation by a developmental biologist, and a statement on the significant role of testosterone in athletic performance signed by forty-one doctors and scientists.
Hogshead-Makar has argued against laws that would ban transgender kids from all participation in sports, but her other positions, and the ways she talks about them—she insists on referring to “biological” genders, for instance—put her deeply at odds with those in favor of broader trans inclusion. (A state legislative director at the Human Rights Campaign has referred to the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group as a hate group.) Hogshead-Makar has suggested that, in some sports, trans women should occupy their own classification, apart from women, and proposed to me that Thomas be allowed to swim in a separately demarcated lane, next to the eight set aside for cisgender women, and have her own podium. She has argued that Thomas, far from being unjustly treated, is being opportunistic in her desire to win. Of course, one could also argue that there is an opportunism involved in seizing on Thomas’s case to advance a broader cause. “We’re somewhat lucky,” Hogshead-Makar told me at one point, “that Lia came along in an objective sport, where we have times, in a sport where race is not an issue. There are always charges of racism in track and field.”
Hogshead-Makar says that she is in favor of inclusion where the so-called legacy advantage of testosterone-driven puberty can be overcome—in marathons, perhaps, given that testosterone suppression can substantially reduce aerobic capacity and hemoglobin levels, or in sports like pistol shooting. “Lia’s times are the evidence that she has not mitigated,” Hogshead-Makar said, citing Thomas’s N.C.A.A. rankings when she competed against men versus her rankings against women. “If you go from a thousandth place to a thousandth place, that’s fair,” she said. “But she’s going from not being able to qualify for the N.C.A.A.s to being ranked first.” It should be noted that, when Thomas was competing against men, as a freshman, she once dropped thirteen seconds from her best thousand-yard freestyle time, setting Penn’s pool record, and that, more generally, athletes, particularly young athletes, can get better. But Hogshead-Makar’s argument reflects a broader truth about the situation: Lia Thomas would have attracted little attention if she always lost.
A few days after the N.C.A.A. announced its new approach, U.S.A. Swimming introduced new, more restrictive rules, calling for three years of testosterone suppression—mere months more than the length of time that Thomas has undergone. If the N.C.A.A. had immediately adopted the rules, Thomas would have been unable to compete in the championships. U.S.A. Swimming also instituted a three-person panel that will decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether adolescent physical development has given a trans woman an unfair edge over cisgender female athletes. It is not yet clear who will serve on that panel, and what criteria they might use. It does seem clear that the rule is designed to exclude trans people from the podium, if not from the pool. They will be allowed to swim, but, in most cases, not to win. As Christina Roberts, a trans doctor of adolescent medicine, who has studied the physiological effects of testosterone suppression, told me, often the only evidence considered legitimate that trans women have lost a competitive advantage is that “they’re no longer competitive.”
Laws against the participation of trans women in women’s sports at the collegiate level have already been passed in eleven states, and more are being considered. Some of them ban trans girls from elementary and youth soccer programs. Earlier this month, Iowa’s governor signed a law prohibiting trans girls and women from competing according to their gender identity; the law applies from kindergarten through college. Reading the arguments made on behalf of such laws, one might get the mistaken impression not only that Republican legislators place a great value on women’s sports but also that trans women are a conquering horde, swarming the leaderboards. In reality, trans women are grossly underrepresented at high levels of all sports, particularly in the winners’ circles. Based on simple demographics, one would expect there to be a few thousand trans athletes in the N.C.A.A. Instead, openly transgender collegiate athletes are disproportionately rare. If trans athletes have physical advantages, it appears these have been overwhelmed, so far, by social, legal, financial, and other disadvantages.
