100% Woman
July 29, 2006 | 
Sports
I recently got digital cable, and I’ve been spending a lot of time watching Logo, a 24/7 gay channel. I’m watching Real Momentum: 100% Woman right now; it’s a documentary about mountain biker Michelle Dumaresq. She’s transgender, so there is a lot of controversy about whether she should be allowed to compete against women. This is not an isolated case - there is actually a long history of debate about this issue.
Personally, I’m not sure how I feel about it. In all other arenas, I would expect transwomen to be equal with non-trans women. But in sports, where physical elements do contribute to winning and losing, is it really fair for someone who may have greater strength to compete against women? I honestly don’t know the answer to this. There’s a scientist in the documentary who says that hormone therapy eliminates any “unfair” advantage, but it’s hard to overcome popular perception, and Michelle Dumaresq will probably always have this controversy following her.
My favorite scene in the documentary isn’t related to gender. It was when Michelle had suffered a bad crash, and she was being worked on by medics. She had her head turned away and her eyes squinched shut, and she was saying “I love downhilling” over and over to herself. Ouch!
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As a Tans-Woman I do have mixed feeling about our participation in sport. Especially when winning is decided by seconds or fractions of seconds. Any advantage will help. The problem is that not all trans-women will have that advantage, just like all natal bodied women we have a variety of bodies to deal with. Not all of us are six foot 1 and 180+ pounds, and not all natal women are five foot 1 and 99 pounds.
Would Michelle win over every other woman on the tour? That has not been the case so far. If you look at other sports such as tennis, or golf, there is most always a player that is dominating the sport at any given time. The Williams sistes in tennis are large powerful women. Do they have an advantage over their less-powerful peers? Of course they do, and If they were Trans they would be defending their right to play.
Mianne Bagger is playing golf on the European Professional Womens tour. The first Trans-woman to do so. She has so far not even come close to being a threat to the top players. Yet she still has to defend her right to play.
It seems that only time will give an answer to the question: Do Trans-Women have an advantage in sports? If ten years from now only Trans-Woman are winning womans events, then hey; there’s a problem here.
I can say that if I had a natal womans body, and was doing well in a sport, until a Trans-Woman came in and blew me away. I would be pissed.
Regards,
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