While ‘This Girl Can Week’ may have passed, AberPride wanted to highlight the progress that has been made towards equality by drawing your attention to trans femme and intersex athletes that have faced adversity and have fought for the rights of other trans athletes.
This girl can week aims to raise awareness and empower women in various degrees and ways, as a way to fight against the stigma perpetrated by the patriarchal rule. As Pride’s contribution to This Girl Can Week and progress towards equality, we wanted to create a small article that celebrates trans femme and intersex athletes that have faced adversity and have fought for the rights of other trans athletes to be able to compete in sports.
Mianne Bagger is a professional golfer that was born in Denmark as a man. Mianne had sex reassignment surgery in 1995, after moving to Australia several years earlier, and started participating in golf again in 1998 as an amatuer. As you’ll come to learn whilst reading this article, various individuals disagreed with Baggers return, claiming that having been born a man, they would have a hormonal and muscle advantage over other female competitors. However, this is simply not the case. As Bagger explained at the time, there are various Physiological elements, including muscle reduction and function loss, that would affect an individual that was transitioning.
However, the Australian Women’s Golf Association had no ban on transitioned women, allowing for Bagger to play and was accepted by other players, such as Laura Davies and Rachel Teske. In 1999, Bagger won her first South-Australian championship, repeating as champion in 2001 and 2002. In 2003, she met the commissioner of the Ladies Professional Golfers Association (LPGA), one Ty Votaw. Unfortunately, they did not share the sentiment and claimed their rules meant to play in the women’s category that “they have to be born women.” Bagger, like many other trans individuals, believes that biology is not the sole arbiter of gender, and therefore refused the rules. However, Votaw hinted that the rules might change at some point.
One of the biggest changes in sports rulings came in 2004, when the international olympics committee re-evaluated their rulings on transitioned athletes, which further sparked changes in other sports rulings. This included: the Ladies European Tour amending their membership criteria, the Australian LPG changing their women at birth clause, the Ladies Golf Union announcing a policy change, and all allowing for Bagger and other Transitioned golfers to be able to play on various tours within Australia, the UK and Europe.
Chloe Anderson’s story is next, a Volleyball player for UC Santa Cruz, becoming the first trans athlete to compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 3 level - It’s their version of BUCS. They have described their life before transitioning as being “off the radar,” wanting to avoid bullying and being beaten up everyday in Kindergarten and Middle school for being different. By their admission, they became reclusive, failing school and wanting to be alone in their room at home.
It wasn’t until Junior year (6th Form/1st year College) that they realised they were transgender and began hurriedly researching and realising they were not alone. After coming out, many friends abandoned her, she was kicked off of a tutor program and her family were not fully accepting. Except, she still had Volleyball and worked tirelessly to get better and better at the sport to be able to get a sports scholarship at Orange Coast College. It unfortunately did not happen, but she refused to give up and applied to UC Santa Cruz. She recalls that the coach “wanted me immediately. The fact that I’m trans didn’t matter at all. He saw me for my athleticism and for how I played.”
After arriving at Santa Cruz, they faced some backlash by other female athletes that criticised the organisations stance on transgender athletes, claiming Testosterone hormones would give them an advantage. She responded saying “People who say male-to-female trans athletes have a physical advantage have never taken hormones. It’s one thing to learn about it in biology class but another thing to live it." Other than this backlash, they felt at home; their teammates accepted her as an equal and talked honestly and openly about the financial, emotional and physical effects that transitioning can have on a person.
Our final story is about Olympian Runner Mokgadi Caster Semenya, an Intersex Cisgender woman who naturally has higher elevated levels of Testosterone. They have a lucrative career within the Olympics, having won the 2016 Summer Olympics Gold medal in 800m and the 2009 and 2017 800m World Championships. After the doping scandal by Mariya Savinova, she was awarded the Gold medal in the 2011 World Championships and the 2012 Summer Olympics, both in 800m.
However, Semenya’s identity was only brought into question due to a high volume of emails and questions sent to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in regards to Semenya’s appearance and physical prowess. The IAAF responded that it had “a duty to investigate,” claiming the improvement of Semenya’s times were grounds for drug and sex tests. This si what led to Semenya’s forced coming out as Intersex and revealing their Testosterone levels were exceptionally higher than most.
It wasn’t until late 2010 that Semenya could compete again. During this time, there was increasing backlash against the IAAF, which led to accusations of systemic racism towards the IAAF president and accusations of neglect towards Semenya’s coach. The IAAF cleared Semenya in July, allowing her to compete 9 days later, but the sex results were not officially released - even after coming out as Intersex. This did not, and continues to not, stop rumours of Semenya having both male and female genitalia.
However, 2015 brought about a rule change due to the court case Dutee Chand v. Athletics Federation of India (AFI) & The International Association of Athletics Federations, which declared that there was no evidence to suggest that naturally higher levels of Testosterone in women had an advantageous effect. This then led to another rule change starting in 2018, where the IAAF continued to state that higher levels of Testosterone did have an advantageous effect and would bring about a rule stating those affected by higher levels of testosterone must submit to hormone balancing drugs.
Semenya refused, stating that they would legally challenge the IAAF’s ruling. The case was unfortunately lost in the Court of Arbitration for Sports, but did result in IAAF clarifying some of the rule changes. It was then taken to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, where they instructed the IAAF to suspend the application of the rule change. This was later overruled by the Court, allowing for the motion to continue. Semenya has stated that this legal battle has “destroyed my mental and physical wellbeing.”
However, this is what This Girl Can week aims to do; to showcase women fighting against the system and empowering one another to stand up for equality and fight back. We hope that by reading this, you would agree on the sentiments and hardships that have been displayed by Semenya, Mianne and Chloe, and will continue to fight for Trans rights.