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Earlier this month, a “Play the Game” conference was held in Finland that included a panel titled “Who has the right to compete? Exploring the inclusion of transgender athletes in sport.”
The panel featured five speakers representing both sides of the controversial issue, including Joanna Marie Harper, a transgender professor at Western University in Canada.
Jon Pike, a philosophy professor at England’s Open University, argued that an open category for transgender athletes should be created to avoid any potential injustice from biological men competing against girls and women.
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Opponents of a bill to ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports react to the bill’s passage after a vote by members of the Nassau County Legislature on June 24, 2024. (Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
Harper, however, was not a fan of the idea, because “99%” of the open category “will be… cisgender men.”
“And so what you’re asking is for trans women to compete in a category that is almost entirely cis men, and just call it an open category. Most trans women, myself included, would rather quit their sport than compete in that category,” Harper said.
In a 2015 op-ed for The Washington Post, Harper wrote, “Science provides a clear explanation for why, in many sports, trans women do not maintain any athletic advantage,” citing hormone therapy and personal experiences.
Supporters of transgender athletes hold signs as an overflow crowd converges outside the Riverside Unified School District meeting Thursday night to debate the rights of transgender athletes to compete in high school sports on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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“In 2005, when I was running in the women’s category, the difference was staggering. I finished a 10K race in 42:01, almost five minutes slower than I had run the same course two years earlier as a man,” Harper wrote.
Harper added that trans women may have advantages in sprinting and basketball due to muscle mass and already acquired height, but may actually have disadvantages in distance running and gymnastics for those same reasons.
“To those who suggest trans women have advantages: We allow advantages in sport, but what we don’t allow are overwhelming advantages,” Harper told Outsports in 2021. “Trans women also have disadvantages in sport. Our larger bodies are driven by reduced muscle mass and reduced aerobic capacity, and can lead to disadvantages in quickness, recovery and a host of other factors.
“The bottom line is that we can have meaningful competition between trans women and cis women. In my view, the data seems in favor of trans women being allowed to compete in women’s sports.”
Transgender athlete supporter Kyle Harp, left, of Riverside holds the Progress Pride flag as Save Girls Sports supporters Lori Lopez and her father Pete Pickering, both of Riverside, listen to the debate as they join the crowd gathering outside the Riverside Unified School District meeting Thursday night to debate rights of transgender athletes to compete in high school sports on Thursday, December 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Currently, twenty-nine states have restrictions on transgender athletes competing in women’s and girls’ sports. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February banning biological males from competing against biological females.
