Prominent Sports Lawyer and Former Olympian Makes a Provocative Point About Trans Women Competing Against Biological Women
Nancy Hogshead-Maker, a former Olympic Gold Medalist and prominent sports lawyer, has kicked off a spirited and voluminous debate on social media when she shared her position on trans women competing against biological women in sporting contests.
Her post:
Trans women should compete with biological women, so long as they mitigate their sex-linked, male-puberty advantage prior to competition in the women’s category. Lia Thomas is a transgender woman, swimming for University of Pennsylvania; she IS apparently complying with NCAA rules requiring hormone therapy, but she has not rolled back her male-puberty sports advantage. How do we know?
The average differential in the men’s and women’s NCAA “A” standard for championship qualification is 11.41% – meaning the women’s times are 11%+ slower than men. (About the same differential occurs if you’re looking at almost any group of records or qualification times bt men and women – American records, world records, NCAA records… ) But Lia is only 2.6% slower than she was pre-transition in the 200y freestyle, and just 5.76% slower in the 500y freestyle. That is NOT mitigation. It is NOT fair.
I should add that it isn’t Lia’s fault – the problem is with the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships rules.
If you agree with me and the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, please sign in support here, and share!: https://womenssportspolicy.org/petition/
On Facebook, hundreds on comments were made, many suggesting separate competitions for trans women.