Where play meets politics

Gender rights at Olympics emerge as the next frontier where sports and politics are set to collide

Every four years when the Olympics come around, the world’s politicians mouth absurdities about how “sports and politics should not mix”. And, every Olympics emphasise that sports is definitely politics by other means.

Apart from now-forgotten idiocy about “amateurism”, previous Olympics are remembered for showboating by dictatorial regimes (1936, 2008), the massacre of athletes (1972), Black Power protests (1968), post-war triumphalism (1948), boycotts triggered by geopolitical events (1980, 1984), etc. The upcoming Paris Olympics also has plenty of noise and fury centred on Russian and Belarusian participation, or the lack of it.

But Paris 2024 could also be controversial in terms of gender politics. Before getting into this subject in any detail, definitions may be necessary. “Sex” refers to biological characteristics, whereas “gender” refers to socially constructed roles and identities. The two usually coincide — say, someone with male sexual characteristics usually identifies as male by gender. 

But in a small but not insignificant number of cases, somebody who is born into one sex identifies as a member of the other gender. Then, we have complications. That somebody may wish to “transition” — going through surgery and hormonal therapy to switch genders. Or, they may simply choose to identify as the other gender.

At scale, this is a 21st century phenomenon because medical science has progressed to the point where gender transition is relatively easy, allowing for switches. In tandem, the laws and social acceptance of transgender people have become more flexible in many places, and gender-fluidity is an accepted concept in many geographies. The usage of pronouns such as “they” allows for this ambiguity too.

Trans-people often inspire violent hatred and may be targeted by regressive laws. In India, for example, they may stand for election, or possess a driving licence or passport, but they would find it very hard to marry.

The rights of transgender people is among the most complicated and controversial subjects in modern jurisprudence. In most professions, gender doesn’t make a difference. In professions like lawyer, politician, scientist, writer, pilot, and historian, gender is orthogonal to competence. But in areas like inheritance, it can cause complications since gender is treated differently in many laws of inheritance, such as India’s personal laws.

Sports is at the cutting-edge of the trans controversy. An individual who is born with male sexual characteristics and hits puberty before transition, is likely to be stronger and faster than somebody born with female sexual characteristics.

Any male tennis player in the ATP top 100 can serve faster than the top women tennis players. No woman has ever run 100 metres in under 10 seconds — the record is 10.49 seconds — whereas over 150 men have sub-10 second timings. The women’s world record in the marathon is 16 minutes more than the men’s record. There are similar disparities in disciplines like swimming, weightlifting, discus throwing, cricket, and football, and let’s not even get into the differences in contact sports.

In various geographies where, for example, athletics scholarships are available, there may be a great temptation for an athlete to make the cut as a woman. This has happened multiple times in the US, for instance, with non-binary individuals competing as females in school and university-level athletics. There are ongoing cases in various US states to try and resolve this situation. But laws banning transgender athletes from competing as female may run afoul of other laws banning discrimination on the grounds of gender.

As of now, various athletics associations have tried to adjust for this situation by banning individuals who have transitioned from male to female using age as a cut-off. The FINA (World Swimming Association) distinguishes between athletes who have transitioned by using the cut-off age of 12. Anybody who has transitioned from male to female after age 12 (most countries don’t allow earlier transitions and that’s another can of worms) cannot compete as a woman. The World Athletics Federation has a similar cut off. But non-binary individuals have competed in the women’s events in football (Quinn won a gold medal for Canada), and in weightlifting.

Most laws that guarantee rights to trans-people don’t distinguish between sports and other activities in banning discrimination, which means that bans could be legally unsustainable. It is likely that this would be the next frontier where sports and politics will collide.