Transgender Representation and the Missed Opportunity of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020

By Rutvi Saxena: 

There’s a lot of things 2020 took away from us, one amongst which is the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Apart from the usual grandeur and athleticism fans around the world expect from the Olympic games, this year’s event was expected to be a remarkable moment of representation for the LGBTQ+ community with over 100 elite athletes of the community in competition.  From Great Britain’s Tom Daley, to the purple haired favorite Megan Rapinoe to our very own Dutee Chand; the 2020 games were poised to be a bright rainbow in the summer. There’s a lot to celebrate here of course, and gay athletes participated in the Olympics long before they could come out of the closet and onto the stadium without facing backlash.

We’ve still a long way to go before the field becomes level for all players, especially those who identify as transgender people or as members of the intersex community.

From Chris Mosier to Castor Semenya-whose case we’ll come to- we’ve seen how homophobia and lack of awareness can trickle down and morph into discriminatory, invasive and unjust treatment meted out to those with a love for sport that deviate from the norm. In 2016, the International Olympic Committee allowed transgender athletes to compete even if they have not undergone sex reassignment surgery, but conditions apply differently based on gender here as well. Athletes who transition from male to female must ensure their testosterone levels are below a certain point for at least a year before competing, while no restrictions apply for those who transition from female to male. Chris Mosier, who represented the US internationally and qualified for racewalking at the Olympics understands this differential treatment only too well as a trans man, especially since it is seen to have been to his benefit.

Speaking to BBC for an interview, he summed up the situation by saying , “A lot of people just shrug when they hear that I’m a trans man on the men’s national team and a two-time men’s national champion…people don’t think someone assigned female at birth could ever be competitive with someone assigned male at birth, and I think that’s why we see discrimination against trans women. People believe they have some sort of advantage over any other women, which is simply not true”.

The ‘replacement’ of cisgender female athletes captures public imagination like nothing else. The controversy in 2018 regarding Castor Semenya’s participation especially made this painfully clear. Semenya is legally a female, identifies as such and was raised from birth as one too- her gender is indisputable but her intersex body cannot negotiate with the confused authorities at Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS).

A bit of introductory biology before we get into this further;

The most common intersex condition in intersex female athletes is ‘46 XY DSD’, where a Y chromosome leads to the development of testes- a ‘disorder of sex development’. These are not external organs however, they’re underdeveloped inside their bodies and although they produce testosterone, their receptors don’t function normally. These women thus have a vagina but often no uterus or ovaries and the circulating testosterone may or may not affect the body.  Semenya’s case foregrounds the inadequacy of our understanding of the human body, sex, gender, and performance.

Is an XX woman a more ‘real’ woman than an XY one? The difference testosterone can make between a man and woman is up to 12%- all other factors being equal. Semenya’s best time, however, is only 2% faster than her competitors’. Who is to determine how much of this is due to her psychology, training, and natural bodily ability and how much due to the ‘excess’ testosterone?

Moreover, where do we draw the line at “natural” bodily ability anyway? Eero Mäntyranta, a much beloved Finnish skier made headlines for his genetic mutation that enhanced his red blood cell count by 25-50% (he produced a larger amount of hormone erythropoietin, or EPO). He won several competitions because of this advantage and was not asked to modify his body in any way; is it then ethical to ask Semenya to lower her testosterone forcefully in what will undoubtedly be a risky process that subjects her body to a condition it is not used to? She had been training and competitively playing for over a decade and was recognized as a female by the International Association of Athletics Federations itself when CAS ruled that she can only continue with a career in sports if she undergoes surgery or takes hormone lowering agents, a judgement that she rightfully called out for being discriminatory.

India, despite being home to persons who identify as trans, for thousands of years and as a crucial part of its cultural heritage, does not understand or even treat its trans citizens any better than they are treated globally. It is no wonder then that in the area of international sports-where there are a gamut of accessibility, efficiency and infrastructural loopholes to be closed, being trans is often like being punished. In India, ordinary people continue to undergo “punishment” despite the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2019, ostensibly meant to protect transgender people. The bill requires a physical examination by a District Magistrate after a mandatory sex-reassignment surgery before an official instance of “sex change” can be recorded. As expected there has been opposition, clearly the bill displays a complete lack of sensitivity and even openness to the trans community’s voice.

The LGBT+ community then, already struggling to find a healthy definition of themselves in a heteronormative and often homophobic society is further marginalized in sports, when one’s body occupies the limelight. While sexual orientation is slowly finding acceptance and representation at the global level, the nuances of sex, gender and sport are still misunderstood by and large. Amidst the clamor for who can play where, it is the players who despite winning medals, end up losing the most.

About the author: Rutvi Saxena is an English Literature graduate from Miranda House, University of Delhi and a published writer on gender, culture, travel and international affairs. Her academic pursuit of the humanities has led to a long-lasting interest in societal structures and how they impact individuals in a variety of contexts. 

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