When I was a kid, playing sports was a big deal for me and those in my family. I played soccer from elementary through high school, even taking my team to a championship while living in Alaska when I was 12.
I know for myself and many other people, being able to play sports in school is critical for overall well-being. But there is a certain group of people threatened with exclusion from school sports. The debate is about whether trans athletes (mainly trans women athletes), should be allowed to play competitive sports.
Lucas Hall
In the state of Colorado, where so many families with trans kids have fled in recent years to give their children the medical care and opportunities they deserve, parents are wondering if Colorado will remain a safe place.
I live in Colorado where Proposition 134 would ban transgender youth from participating in competitive sports from kindergarten through college, including intramurals and private schools.
This measure — on the ballot this fall — provides no method about who inspects or interviews student athletes to find the trans players. Nor does it offer any criteria to be used to decide if someone is male or female.
The kind of invasive questioning and bodily inspections likely to result if this proposition passes would be very traumatizing for youth and would be a violation of their body, privacy and health information.
We know these types of questions and inspections will lead to harassment of both trans children and those who are suspected to be trans, because that already has happened in Utah.
In August 2022, parents of girls who finished second and third in an athletic event questioned whether the winner was transgender. The athletic association then pulled school records back to kindergarten and verified this girl was cisgender, not trans. These records were obtained without permission from or with the knowledge of the family. While the very ones who are enacting such legislation claim they are doing it to protect women and girls, this process opens the door for the potential abuse, discrimination and harassment of women and girls.
It is understandable that many fear trans women will perform at higher levels and with greater strength than their cisgender peers, making the playing field unlevel. It also is reasonable that many are concerned about potential harm to cisgender women if trans women are playing with and against them. But there is no injury data pointing in either direction that prove trans females pose a safety risk when playing with cisgender females. This assumption and claim are strictly hypothetical.
“Studies also show there are very few trans girls and women playing sports.”
Studies also show there are very few trans girls and women playing sports. That’s because they either do not have an interest in playing, feel uncomfortable or unsafe in locker rooms, fear discrimination or aren’t being comfortable in athletic uniforms.
In December 2024, NCAA President Charlie Baker said he knew of fewer than 10 trans people out of 510,000 competing in college sports, showing the numbers are incredibly small.
In addition to the use of cross-sex hormones used by trans females, the use of puberty blockers and testosterone-suppressing medications contribute to transwomen’s overall fitness ability being comparable to cisgender females.
To give some context, a 2024 IOC-funded study showed trans female athletes possess higher grip strength than cisgender females but lower jump height, aerobic capacity per kilo and lung function. In other studies, strength and speed in transgender women were still noted as higher than cisgender women when trans women had been on female hormones for up to three years. So while there may be some advantages trans women have over cisgender women, there also are disadvantages.
The data on all this is contested, and more research is needed to further understand how transwomen’s athletic abilities vary over time, both for those who underwent a male puberty and for those who did not.
Instead of enforcing blanket bans that do not consider the nuance of each person and the sport they are playing, using eligibility policies based on actual data and taking into consideration the person and sport itself, sporting organizations should work together to establish eligibility guidelines that consider fairness and inclusion for transgender and cisgender people who wish to participate. As a colleague recently said to me, “Every sport has its own physics, and every sport needs its own rules.”
“More research is needed to further understand how transwomen’s athletic abilities vary over time.”
Determining and understanding one’s sex is sometimes complex, as we see represented in the intersex population. Genetics, hormones and chromosomes vary among people who do not identify as trans, so determining what is fair solely based on one’s gender or sex is simply not conclusive.
Sports are an important developmental and social element for kids for team building, developing social skills and building confidence and staying in physical shape. To exclude and discriminate against transgender kids is to further the discrimination and stigma they already experience.
That leads to violence toward trans people and self-harm and suicide by trans people. One study in 2024 found a 7% to 72% increase in suicide attempts among trans youth when state anti-trans laws were proposed or written into law. Additionally, a study by the Trevor Project showed lower depression for queer youth who were able to play sports.
School sports are meant to give kids a positive outlet, the opportunity to learn a sport and place to have fun with their peers. But so many are complicating it and drawing harsh lines around who should be allowed to play.
Perhaps the question we should be asking is how to make sports more inclusive in general. The harm that will be caused to trans youth by not allowing them to participate greatly outweighs any possible levels of slight differences that may exist between trans and cisgender people.
Lucas Hall is host of the BNG podcast “This Is My Story” and is an advocate for the transgender community. He lives in Denver and is a graduate of Austin Presbyterian Seminary in Texas.
Related:
Let’s look more closely at the claim 2,300 trans athletes have ‘stolen’ gold medals | Analysis by Josh Olds
These Olympic boxers are not transgender but their experience illustrates transphobia | Analysis by Cynthia Vacca Davis
How one manufactured story becomes a belief about millions | Opinion by Eileen Monte