![Cooper v. USA Powerlifting: Fighting for Trans Athletes](https://www.genderjustice.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/cooper-v-usapl-thumb-570x470.jpg)
Cooper v. USA Powerlifting:
Trans people belong in — and are already participating in — sports. It’s important that transgender people continue to experience the social, physical, and cultural benefits of athletics. Sports institutions must respect the dignity and humanity of transgender people by ensuring their ability to participate.
Recently, anti-trans activists have launched aggressive legal, legislative, and messaging campaigns perpetuating the false notion that trans women competing in sports pose an existential threat to women’s sports. This is simply not true.
To be clear, there are very real threats to women’s sports — racism, pay inequities, sexual abuse, and lack of athletic opportunities in schools, to name a few — but trans athletes competing is not one. Women’s sports are stronger when we prioritize equity and inclusion.
No. Every person’s body is different. There’s no scientific evidence that the average trans athlete is any bigger, stronger, or faster than the average cis athlete. Trans women are women. Different athletes have advantages over one another all of the time. Athletic performance depends on many complicated factors: access to better coaches and facilities; money to pay for nutritionists, recovery services; and many others. At the highest levels of sport, physical characteristics can only get you so far — you also need serious technical skill, training and access to resources.
No. Trans women are not always stronger or bigger than cis women. Additionally, there are many indicators that contribute to success in sport, including control, finesse, agility, technique, or depth perception (stereopsis) in order to win. Every single athlete’s body is different.
When discussing trans people’s participation in sports, it is not appropriate to compare men and women. Trans women are women and trans men are men. When trans women compete in women’s sports, there are no men competing.
WOMEN HAVE FOUGHT SO HARD — AND ARE STILL FIGHTING — TO GET THE RECOGNITION THEY DESERVE IN SPORT. IF TRANS WOMEN ARE ALLOWED TO COMPETE, WON’T THEY TAKE OVER SPORT?
Trans women are women. They’re not perpetrating fraud to dominate in sport, they’re looking to be a part of a sport, just like any other athlete. The reality is that trans women are very much underrepresented in sport. Professional trans women athletes are extremely rare. In fact, trans athletes have been allowed to openly compete in the Olympics since 2003, and yet no trans athlete has ever gone to the Olympics. While we do not have any concrete numbers of trans athletes that are participating at any other level of sport (including youth, high school, or collegiate sport), we do know that a 2017 study found that about 3% of Minnesota high school students identify as transgender or gender nonconforming. Often, trans athletes’ participation in sport is only noticed when they win.
Cooper v. USA Powerlifting: