For most athletes, the path to the Olympics, or any elite sport, is tough but ultimately simple: train, compete, win, then train some more, compete, win, and if you’re good enough and lucky, you’ll reach the highest level of your sport and compete against the best for a gold medal.
But for now, some transgender athletes are barred from competing, especially trans women who have risen to the top of the sports world. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, many sports will require trans women to have transitioned before puberty. With gender-affirming medical care becoming increasingly difficult to access, some top-level competitions have banned trans women from participating altogether. So while non-binary athletes like middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz and soccer star Quinn are doing great in Paris, most trans women are unable to qualify. (The lack of trans women in Olympic sports hasn’t stopped people from fixating on cisgender boxer Imane Kheriff with prejudice and gender panic.)
For many promising athletes, these rules mean game over. In 2022, swimmer Leah Thomas became the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship. Soon after, World Aquatics banned women who transitioned after puberty from competing (making it impossible for Thomas to compete in this year’s Olympics). Sprinter CeCe Telfer was also barred by World Athletics from competing in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials, a decision she called “blatant discrimination.”
As sports governing bodies become more determined than ever to exclude transgender women and debates over their inclusion rage, dedicated athletes push through and continue to compete at the highest level they can. Cosmopolitan spoke to four transgender athletes from a range of sports and countries about how growing hostility, tougher rules, and the fight for inclusion are impacting their training and daily lives.
Alexia Selenis, rugby union player, France
Rugby is special – it’s not like swimming or cycling, where national championships have no impact on international competition (i.e. World Rugby has no power to exclude transgender women from federations at national level, but their participation in international competition is dependent on their national and regional performances).
My integration into the first girls’ team went very well. After two years in the second division, I was scouted by a first division team, LONS Section Paloise, and spent the best six years of my life as an athlete. However, even though LONS Rugby has been open to transgender athletes for over 20 years, no transgender athlete has ever dominated the sport. Even if you go through male puberty, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) will completely transform your performance. Any advantages you may have gained up to that point will be lost. The disadvantages after HRT will outweigh any remaining advantages you may have gained during your first puberty.
“There has yet to be a transgender athlete win a competitive event.”
We need to make the public understand about transfeminine athletes and the effects hormones have on the body. If we don’t explain this, people will think, why are men competing with women? But we are talking about international competitions with high-level athletes who have extraordinary physical abilities. They are not just ordinary citizens. They train for hours and excel in their fields. They have really special skills. This is a divisive subject, but it needs to be explained because basic transphobia can quickly turn into sexism. Look at how Imane Kheriff, Katie Ledecky, Caster Seymegna and many others have been attacked for their lack of femininity and their amazing performances.
As a transgender athlete, living with the constant threat of being banned from sport was a huge burden. For World Rugby, this issue came up in 2020. They were considering banning transgender women from sport. I thought my dreams would be shattered. But in the end, they only advised national and regional organisations not to select transgender athletes for international competitions. I felt reassured and relieved that I could continue playing the sport I love at regional and national level.
Chelsea Wolf, BMX freestyler, USA
I was an alternate at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and was supposed to be an alternate in BMX freestyle in Paris, but then the International Cycling Union (UCI) banned transgender women from competing in international competitions. The rule was changed overnight, just one week before the biggest event of the year. To me, it felt deliberate and cruel.
When the ban went into effect, it destroyed my career. Olympians come with many opportunities — they’re more marketable to the general public. Those opportunities were taken away from a community that already faces employment discrimination and income inequality at much higher rates than many other groups.
It was my dream to compete internationally as a BMX freestyle rider, but it was also my home. It was much harder than I could have ever imagined. At first, I was just fighting to survive. I was literally trying to find some semblance of a will to live. My reason for living had been taken away from me. So I was trying to rebuild a life that was so far removed from what I had known before.
“It was my dream to compete, but it was also my hometown.”
Suicide rates among athletes are rising. We are passionate, driven human beings who experience the greatest joys and the worst sorrows by competing. Transgender people also face higher suicide rates and mental health issues. Since this ban came into effect, I have led myself to a point where I am no longer at risk of self-harming. I cannot stress this enough. Without the strength and resilience of our community, the UCI and all other federations, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC), would have seen suicide after suicide.
“Those who want to ban transgender athletes say we’re taking away opportunities from cisgender girls, but we are girls too. It’s instructive that officials are concerned about cisgender girls not getting the chance to compete, but are perfectly OK with taking that away from transgender girls.”
Not only was I denied the chance to win, I was denied the opportunity to even try. All we want is a chance to get on the starting line; we’re not asking for a guaranteed win. In fact, it feels like the proponents of these bans are demanding it: they want cisgender people to win these competitions.
Valentina Petrillo, Paralympic sprinter, Italy
At the Paralympic World Championships in Paris last year, he won bronze medals in the 400m and 200m and reaffirmed his status as Italian champion in the blind indoor and outdoor 100-200-400m events. The races in Paris are on 2nd and 6th September.
I am lucky because I can talk about myself and do what I love, which is running. For me, sports are an outlet for expression. But the hardest battle has been coming out to the whole world.
When I started hormone therapy in 2019, the attitude towards the LGBTQIA+ community in sports was much more positive. In 2020, I became the first woman to compete, even though my paperwork was not fully updated. It was a highlight of trans inclusion in sports.
From that moment on, things got worse. I even faced transphobia in sports. In a Masters competition, for athletes over 35, I was banned from going into the women’s restroom. It happened so many times that last year I decided that I would no longer take part in these types of competitions.
I was relieved when World Para Athletics did not follow IAAF guidelines for transgender athletes and mandate that they transition before puberty. Sport is important for all, and denying them participation is discrimination with no scientific basis. Transgender people are athletes. We are professionals.
“Transgender people are athletes. We are professionals.”
It’s not easy to focus only on the sport and block out external pressures. Last year, I thought about quitting athletics, but I worked on regaining my self-esteem with the help of a mental coach. I learned concentration techniques to improve my focus and not get distracted by external noise. The most effective one for me is humming a song. I improve my concentration when I ignore external pressures and focus only on my performance.
Kristen Fiore, mountaineer, USA
There are two ways to be big in climbing: indoors and outdoors. Olympic sport climbing is indoors, but I hope that growing popularity will make climbing more accessible. I want people to fall in love with climbing as much as I fell in love with it. But a lot of my climbing, both as a guide and as an athlete, is done outdoors. Outdoor climbing is also a high-level sport, but there are no judges. There is no international governing body, but you can still achieve great things and get sponsors and media attention. So, outdoors, if our community is there and supports us, we don’t have to worry about what the IOC is going to say about it. That’s what makes climbing different from other Olympic sports.
Many transgender women begin climbing as a way to cope with gender dysphoria, and then as that gender dysphoria lessens, they learn how to perform the sport in a way that helps them love themselves and their bodies more and develop a healthy relationship with their bodies.
But transphobia and my inner struggles still affect my training. Sports is one of the last places transphobia can lurk. Why is it okay for trans people to use restrooms according to their gender identity, but not for trans women to compete in sports? I am a climbing coach and athlete myself. Anyone who competes at a high level or coaches athletes will tell you that the mental and emotional aspects of competition cannot be overemphasized. Competition is important to us because it tells us how good we are in that moment. It is frustrating to have to fight so hard to compete.
“The work we do is for those who dream of drawing their own hand in chalk under the Olympic rings.”
If you don’t see trans women as women, there’s not much I can say to make you believe we deserve to be in women’s sports. I often wonder if trans climbers need to fight for inclusion. If I wasn’t working with amazing activists, I would probably say no. Most of the time, I’d rather be walking in the woods than have someone approach me on the street and say, “You’re so brave.” But there are trans girls out there who see me as a high-level athlete in this sport and are inspired by me. I want that for them. If climbing in the Olympics inspires the next kid to take up the sport, of course I’ll smile. The work we do to get inclusion in women’s competition is for those who dream of chalking their hand under the five Olympic rings.
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Sidney Bauer is a transgender journalist who covers sports, politics and major events through the lens of identity and gender.