Cyclist takes on sport bodies’ gender rules
Transgender Canadian says system is flawed
A Canadian cyclist who transitioned from man to woman — then had to prove to sporting officials she was sufficiently female — has won a key battle in her unique human-rights complaint over the policing of athlete gender.
Kristen Worley alleges world sports bodies have set up a discriminatory system that starts with humiliating sex-verification tests, and continues with anti-doping rules that prevent transitioned competitors from getting enough synthetic hormones.
Testosterone supplements are banned as performance enhancing, but Torontobased Worley — unable to produce any sex hormones naturally — says she needs them just to stay healthy and not fall behind other cyclists.
On the eve of this month’s Olympic Games, Ontario’s human rights tribunal ruled her case has a “reasonable prospect of success,” enough merit to advance to a full hearing.
At issue are what the tribunal called “complex” questions, generated by the increasingly blurred gender lines in sporting events segregated by sex.
Other athletes, such as South African runner Caster Semenya, have challenged specific rulings on sex verification, noted professor Janice Forsyth, a Western University expert on the Olympic movement.
Worley, on the other hand, “is challenging the very foundation of the policy itself,” said the kinesiologist, who supports the cyclist’s rights crusade.
“This is pretty remarkable, because we are talking about a 120-year history that has finally culminated in a human-rights challenge. It’s huge.”
The tribunal decided it had no jurisdiction over the International Olympic Committee and World Anti-doping Agency, but said the case could proceed against international and Canadian cycling organizations.
Worley declined to comment on the decision.
Caroline Jones, lawyer for the Union Cycliste Internationale, one of the defendants, said she did not have permission to comment on the dispute.
But tribunal member JoAnne Pickel said the sports bodies had raised “important issues,” such as the fact that they have a process in place for allowing athletes to take approved amounts of banned hormones for health reasons, and that permitting unrestricted use of such drugs could cause undue harm.
The case is rooted in the IOC’s long history of trying to identify women who, in its view, might have an unfair advantage.
People who had transitioned from male to female were allowed to compete for the first time under the 2003 Stockholm Consensus, though they had to undergo full gender-reassignment surgery, then wait another two years.
Worley, who had ambitions to compete in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics in track racing, was the first Canadian and first cyclist anywhere to go through the Stockholm verification process, winning approval in 2006.
But, says her human-rights complaint, removal of gonads meant she was producing no sex hormones and the lack of testosterone and other “androgens” — which women generate naturally in their ovaries — resulted in an “extreme” post-menopausal state, muscle atrophy, decreased energy, accelerated bone loss and other harms.
“Over the years, I have felt my body become unwell and unable to function as it once did,” her tribunal submission says. “As an athlete, I saw my performance deteriorate.”
Worley was finally granted permission under a “therapeutic use exemption (TUE)” to take some synthetic hormones, but says the amount permitted was too low to restore her to full health.
The case revolves around whether the cyclist was a victim of discrimination because of the sex-verification and anti-doping systems.
Forsyth suggests it raises more basic notions: that sports organizations have no business deciding who is female, that gender is not a binary, male-female code.
“We’re all made up of the same stuff, it just depends on how you get put together,” said the Western professor. “Is it a problem if someone we would call a male transitions to someone we would call a female? I would say that sports is made up of exceptional people anyway. … These are the exceptions to the exceptional.”