World Rugby’s proposed ban on trans athletes is wrong. History shows inclusion is possible
"GOP Senator introduces bill that could require genital exams for girls competing in school sports"
September 9, 2020 2.15pm AEST
Author Noah Riseman Associate Professor in History, Australian Catholic University
Disclosure statement...
For the past three years, I have been researching Australia’s transgender history and have had the privilege of interviewing trans women and men who play sport and, to varying degrees, faced fights over their right to play.
Rugby union is the latest front in the battle over transgender participation in sport.
In July, The Guardian reported that World Rugby – the international governing body for the sport – prepared draft guidelines on a new transgender policy.
These guidelines would ban trans women and non-binary people assigned male at birth from competing in women’s rugby. They argue trans women pose a safety risk to cisgender women players.
The policy is much stricter than any other sport, and certainly more so than the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules adopted in 2015.
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A key point that Coughlan, Bagger and other athletes shared with me was that most of their teammates and competitors had no problem with them. Criticism came primarily from a minority of athletes who had not met them, or commentators, officials and politicians far removed from their lives.
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New guidelines start to emerge
In 2004, the IOC adopted the Stockholm Consensus for trans participation in the Olympics, which required gender affirmation surgery, at least two additional years of hormone treatment and testosterone levels within a certain range.
The IOC rules have consistently served as a benchmark guiding sporting organisations around the world.
Since then, the debates over transgender inclusion have grown louder and more intense. And as a result of increased transgender visibility and anti-discrimination protections, individual sporting bodies have felt compelled to design their own policies on transgender inclusion.
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Some of the sportspeople I have interviewed support a more restrictive approach similar to the Stockholm Consensus. Others are satisfied with the updated 2015 IOC rules, which removed the surgery requirement and focus on testosterone levels instead.
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