Image by Alyssa Gonzales via Flickr
Jessica Fernandez | Contributing Writer
opinion@fiusm.com
LGBT equality issues and rights have become a huge topic in recent times. As a country, we have made significant strides towards more equality and acceptance of the LGBT community; however, there are still some issues that have not been completely figured out when it comes to transgender or transsexual people. One of those issues is whether transgender athletes, specifically women, should be allowed to compete in sports with the gender they identify with, rather than the gender that they were born as. Some pose the question of whether or not this will present unfair physical advantages when playing sports.
Over the last 20 years, members of the LGBT community have been able to express their sexuality more freely. Great progress has been made when it comes to gay marriage as well; about 37 states have approved gay marriage, including Florida. When it comes to transgender people, many people accept acknowledging them by the gender that they identify with.
Most professional sports where people are competing against each other are separated by gender. Men and women never compete against each other in these sports. Basketball has the National Basketball Association for Men and the Women’s National Basketball Association. The UFC also separates men fighters from women fighters. They are segregated in a sense because men and women are born with different bodies that possess different abilities. If men and women played against each other, men would have an unfair advantage against the women.
This is where the issue arises: Transgender women are born male, and therefore have the genetic makeup of a man, so would it be fair for transgender women to compete against women? A male who identifies as a women – a transgender woman – still has the biological makeup of a man. Transgender women who have sex-reassignment surgery may argue that they are now physically a woman, but sex-reassignment surgery does not change their genetic makeup or physical abilities. When it comes to the UFC, for example, it would be completely unfair for a woman to fight against a transgendered woman, even if she had sex-reassignment surgery. The transgendered woman is clearly stronger and could really hurt the woman she is fighting against, whereas she probably wouldn’t have gotten as hurt had she fought against a woman who was born a woman. Basically, she is fighting with a man who had physically changed her gender on the outside, but on the inside, she possesses just as much strength and agility as a man. The same problem can arise in any sport, such as basketball or tennis.
So how far does gender acknowledgement go when it comes to sports? It will be interesting to see how professional sports associations handle this issue on transgender women. They may accept transgender women competing against other women depending on the sport that it is. They may come up with a way to compensate for the advantage that transgender women have over women in sports. It is important for sports associations to find a way to include transgender athletes who want to compete in a fair way.