{"id":17642,"date":"2021-02-23T11:59:37","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T11:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=17642"},"modified":"2021-02-23T11:59:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T11:59:37","slug":"why-the-world-rugby-guidelines-banning-trans-athletes-from-the-womens-game-are-reasonable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/why-the-world-rugby-guidelines-banning-trans-athletes-from-the-womens-game-are-reasonable\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the World Rugby guidelines banning trans athletes from the women\u2019s game are reasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking at aspects of safety, fairness and inclusivity, senior lecturer in philosophy Dr Jon Pike<\/a> at The Open University<\/a> discusses World Rugby\u2019s guidelines on participation in the women\u2019s game published in 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2020, World Rugby undertook a painstaking policy process to address the issue of transwomen in rugby. This led to guidelines that exclude transwomen from competing in women\u2019s rugby at the World Cup level \u2014 the\u00a0first international sports federation<\/a>\u00a0to do so.<\/p>\n

The new guidelines don\u2019t exclude transwomen from rugby completely, of course: they just specify that players must compete in the category of their birth sex, for reasons of safety and fairness.<\/p>\n

Though controversial, the guidelines are fair, reasonable and supported by evidence. They offer the best way forward, not just for rugby, but for other sports.<\/p>\n

A sports ethics viewpoint<\/h2>\n

I participated in the\u00a0global symposium<\/a>\u00a0in London where the guidelines were debated, as an expert on sports ethics. I\u2019m a philosopher rather than a sports scientist, and I\u2019ve done work for both the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee in the past.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
Many advocates for trans inclusion in the women\u2019s game believe the right way to address this issue is to balance fairness against safety. But <\/span>in this recently published paper<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 drawn from my presentation to the London symposium \u2014 I argue such a \u201cbalancing\u201d approach is seriously wrong. Instead, organisations like World Rugby should adopt a \u201clexical priority\u201d approach.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

What does that mean? From the possible set of rules that exist, it means first selecting those that are safe, then the safe rules that are also fair, then the safe and fair rules that are maximally inclusive.<\/p>\n

This approach \u2014 first, do A, then B, then C \u2014 is better than an opaque attempt to \u201cbalance\u201d all three at the same time.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"

Scoring a try in the final between Australia and New Zealand in the Rugby League World Cup in 2019. Brendon Thorne\/AAP<\/p><\/div>\n

What about the science?<\/h2>\n<\/figure>\n

So much for the method. But what about the science? And how do they fit together?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a flurry of recent papers on the participation of transwomen in sport. In\u00a0this one<\/a>, which also was presented in London, developmental biologist Emma Hilton and sports scientist Tommy Lundberg review a large range of studies, and show the effect of hormone replacement therapy for transwomen is much less than would be needed to ensure a level playing field.<\/p>\n

In short, transwomen retain large male advantages in terms of muscle mass, strength, VO2 Max (maximal oxygen uptake) and other relevant metrics.
\nAnother recent study<\/a>\u00a0by paediatrics specialist Timothy Roberts and others, looks at US military personnel \u2014 trained and fit people subject to monthly physiological tests \u2014 and comes to similar conclusions.<\/p>\n

And in\u00a0data presented by World Rugby<\/a>, biomechanical modelling studies suggest that, in the women\u2019s game, transgender players create head and neck forces 20-30% greater than elite women\u2019s rugby players as a result of mass differences alone. This suggests a potential risk of injury to female players from transwomen players.<\/p>\n

How does fairness fit in?<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s plug this into a lexical methodology. From the evidence, it doesn\u2019t look as if transwomen competing in women\u2019s rugby is safe. The increased forces generated by transwomen significantly raise the risk of serious and catastrophic injury to female players.<\/p>\n

That should be enough, on its own, to make the guidelines appropriate for a collision sport like rugby. But let\u2019s go on, for the sake of other sports, and talk about fairness.<\/p>\n

When it comes to fairness, there are two arguments \u2014 what I call the \u201cadvantage argument\u201d and the \u201crange argument\u201d.<\/p>\n

The advantage argument says women\u2019s sport is justified by the existence of the physiological advantages that being born male provides to men. Women\u2019s sport necessarily involves the exclusion of those with male advantage. That\u2019s the point of the category.<\/p>\n

According to the range argument, however, lots of male-born people, including transwomen, are in the\u00a0range<\/em>\u00a0of females. This means they are not necessarily faster or stronger than the fastest or strongest female athletes just because they were born male.<\/p>\n

So, if transwomen are \u201cin the range\u201d of female athletes, then their inclusion in sport is still fair, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong. The range argument rests on a misunderstanding of women\u2019s sport. It is not a category for people who are a bit smaller, slower and weaker than the top males. It isn\u2019t justified by performance or body metrics, but by the absence of a particular sort of advantage.<\/p>\n

So the range argument is beside the point. If we are to have two classes of sport \u2014 male and female \u2014 then the division is justified by the existence of male advantage. Those who claim male advantage (including residual male advantage for transwomen) doesn\u2019t matter are actually arguing for unisex sport.<\/p>\n

It is crucial to know then if male advantage is retained after a transgender athlete transitions. And the studies by Hilton, Lundberg and Roberts all show, conclusively, that male advantage is still there.<\/p>\n

\"\"

New Zealand\u2019s Portia Woodman, left, scores past France\u2019s Chloe Pelle during the Women\u2019s Rugby Sevens World Cup final in 2018.\u00a0Jeff Chiu\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

Where to from here for other sports?<\/h2>\n

The evidence from the World Rugby deliberations is\u00a0now in<\/a>, and most of it can be read, analysed and subjected to critique by anyone.<\/p>\n

While there will be no changes before the Tokyo Olympics, the IOC is currently in\u00a0consultation<\/a>\u00a0with international sport federations over the inclusion of transgender athletes, each with their own particular concerns.<\/p>\n

The question is whether the IOC and other international federations respond to the latest research, or if they will continue to keep their heads in the sand.<\/p>\n

Dr Jon Pike, senior lecturer in philosophy<\/a>, The Open University<\/a><\/p>\n

This article is republished from\u00a0The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0under a Creative Commons license. Read the\u00a0original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking at aspects of safety, fairness and inclusivity, senior lecturer in philosophy Dr Jon Pike at The Open University discusses World Rugby\u2019s guidelines on participation in the women\u2019s game published in 2020. In 2020, World Rugby undertook a painstaking policy process to address the issue of transwomen in rugby. This led to guidelines that exclude […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":17643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[869,1525,1640,2200],"class_list":["post-17642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-social-sciences","tag-fass","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}