Matt Bush, FISM News
World Athletics, the governing body for track and field and other international running events, announced its decision on Thursday to exclude transgender female athletes from world rankings competitions.
“Decisions are always difficult when they involve conflicting needs and rights between different groups, but we continue to take the view that we must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said.
“We will be guided in this by the science around physical performance and male advantage which will inevitably develop over the coming years. As more evidence becomes available, we will review our position, but we believe the integrity of the female category in athletics is paramount.”
Prior to this ruling, biological males who identify as transgender were “required to reduce their amount of blood testosterone to a maximum of 2.5 nanomoles for a period of 24 months to qualify for competition.”
The changes are expected to take effect on March 31, and Coe contends that there are currently no transgender athletes competing in the sport currently who will be affected by this decision.
The issue of biological males competing against women has become a hot-button and polarizing topic of late.
Lia Thomas competing in women’s swimming, Laurel Hubbard competing in women’s Olympic weightlifting, and the Vermont Christian high school basketball team forfeiting their state tournament rather than playing against a biological male are all recent examples of men competing against women.
On Sunday, cycling became the most recent battleground for the protection and integrity of women’s sports.
On Sunday, a biological male who began competing in the sport of competitive cycling in 2018 at the age of 40, stood atop the podium at the
After competing for just 6 years and at the age of 46, Tiffany Thomas, a biological male, was able to defeat her female competition at a Randall’s Island Crit cycling race in New York.
USA Cycling follows the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) rules regarding transgender athletes at the elite level of competition. These rules state that “those who transition from male to female (MTF) are eligible to compete in the female category” if they simply self-identify as transgender and follow certain testosterone limitations
Tiffany Thomas is considered an elite competitor, and during her short 6 years in competitive cycling, she has finished atop the podium 16 times in elite competition.
While much has been said about the need for transgender athletes to feel “included,” the bigger issue at hand is the effect that this phenomenon has on women athletes.
Former cycling champion Hanna Arensman quit the sport of competitive cycling after Thomas’ most recent win.
“I have decided to end my cycling career,” Arensman said last Wednesday. “I came in 4th place, flanked on either side by male riders awarded 3rd and 5th places.”
Women who have trained their entire lives to compete in the sports they love have ironically been pushed to the fringe of women’s sports due to the aggressive push of the LGBTQ agenda.
In Arensman’s words, “It has become increasingly discouraging to train as hard as I do only to have to lose to a man with the unfair advantage of an androgenized body that intrinsically gives him an obvious advantage over me, no matter how hard I train. I feel for young girls learning to compete and who are growing up in a day when they no longer have a fair chance at being the new record holders and champions in cycling.”