TRANSITION AND PERFORMANCE: GATHERING THE DATA

Joanna Harper, a researcher at Loughborough University, is evaluating the effects of transition on the sporting performance of transgender athletes

Tell us about your research.

We are monitoring the sporting performance of trans athletes before and after hormone therapy, as well as measuring size, strength, speed and stamina of athletes who have already undergone transition, benchmarked against cis-women athletes.

There are very few elite-level trans athletes – does this restrict research?

It’s a serious limitation, but there will be more studies carried out around the world. This research needs to be conducted in a multi-centre, multinational way.

Is British Cycling’s 5nmol/l testosterone rule grounded in solid research or is it a ‘best guess’?

A little of both. There have been studies on non-athletes, showing the changes that occur with hormone therapy: after four months the haemoglobin of trans women had dropped from typical male to typical female values, while some strength advantage remained even after three years. We’re investigating this further, and I am certain we will see larger changes in athletes than in non-athletes.

Does this mean cycling may need different rules for sprinting events where strength plays a bigger role?

Potentially but not necessarily. Just because someone has an advantage in one particular characteristic doesn’t necessarily preclude them from competing. It is important to create rules that allow meaningful competition for all women. If trans women become overrepresented in any particular area, that would need to be looked at very closely. Right now, trans women are hugely underrepresented.

Looking ahead, should testosterone remain the key metric in inclusion rules?

I would like to see something better replace testosterone. Maybe there are other, better parameters that we don’t know yet. There is a lot of cultural baggage around testosterone but it’s the best thing we have now from a scientific point of view.