Gender ruling hangs in balance
Fairness. It’s the level-playing field of sport, even if it seems money and professionalism can make the grass a little greener on one side than the other. That basic notion has been thoroughly tested over the past few decades, its meaning and application stretched, for some, beyond recognition.
Doping has ruined careers and undermined the credibility of various sports; match-fixing has robbed many fans of what little trust remains.
Often such corruptions have been one step ahead of the officials appointed to rein them in; sometimes those officials have been found complicit.
Pity the sports fan struggling with that troubled history who is now considering the looming impact of transgender athletes and what they might mean. And for the bodies charged with ensuring some element of fairness and discipline in those sports.
New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard, a weightlifter who won a silver medal at the 2017 World Champs and gold at last week’s Pacific Games, is one of a number of transgender athletes testing the International Olympic Committee’s principles of participation and fairness.
Clearly the IOC, as well as other global sports bodies, is struggling with how to allow the former while maintaining the latter: any solution will require a careful balance but either the individual’s right to compete will be compromised by recognising fairness for the wider group, or vice
versa. As strange and ‘‘other’’ as this might seem to many sports fans, it is not new.
As reported yesterday, global sports leaders are focusing on testosterone levels to define gender and ‘‘fairness’’.
But there appear to be wide margins within sexes, let alone between cisgender and trans people.
South African world champion middle distance runner Caster Semenya is a cisgender woman with an unusually high level of testosterone. She believes it’s a natural gift akin to Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe’s extra large feet or multiple Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain’s unusually big lungs. The International Association of Athletics Federations disagrees, deeming that slight edge unfair.
But the dispute highlights the difficulties of weighing the often subjective idea of fairness.
Whatever conclusion is reached, any decision must be based on sound scientific research and it must balance the needs and rights of the many with those of the few. While ignoring ignorance and bigotry.
Failure to get this right will not only undermine the sports these officials represent and the sponsorship that pays for them, it will corrode the credibility of those officials and the very infrastructure that maintains their sport.
That would be an unfairness felt by all, with ramifications for wider society.