Transgender athletes should not be penalized

A week ago, Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, came out as a transgender woman in a cover article in Vanity Fair. Jenner made headlines in the New York Times and the Washington Post and will receive an award for her courage at ESPN’s annual ESPY awards show. But though the response from the international media was largely positive, not everyone has been as receptive.

Users on the forum site, 4chan,  who could charitably be described as online “trolls,” started a petition last week to “Revoke Caitlyn Jenner’s Olympic medals” on the site Change.org. The petition, which has close to 15,000 signatures, insidiously asks the International Olympic Committee to revoke Ms. Jenner’s medals because when she competed in 1976, she was really a woman and thus should have been competing in the women’s division instead of the men’s.

The petition itself seems nothing more than ignorant hate directed toward a gifted athlete and brave individual. Trolls on 4chan have a long and sordid history of pulling stunts “for the lulz,” such as encouraging iPhone users to microwave their phones and spreading the hashtag “#Cut4Bieber” to encourage girls to mutilate themselves.

This petition further ignores Caitlyn Jenner’s reality and the reality of any transgender person. Though Caitlyn was defined as a male at birth and has been known as “Bruce” for most of her life, her experiences and qualifications prior to the transition should not be perceived any differently now that she is gendered as a woman. She might have competed in the Olympics in 1976 with Bruce’s identity, but Caitlyn still deserves her decathlon medals. New information about her gender identity does not change or invalidate her prowess in sports 40 years ago.

There are legitimate reasons to revoke a person’s medals or championships after the competition is over. Baseball player Barry Bonds will forever have an asterisk by his name because he used steroids. Cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of his record seven consecutive Tour de France wins because of blood doping. Unlike Bonds and Armstrong, however, Jenner’s gender identity did not give her an unfair advantage in 1976.  She competed against the best athletes in the world with similar physical and hormonal make-ups. While Bonds and Armstrong injected banned substances to get an edge over their competition, Jenner did not.

Just because a person comes out as transgender and reveals his or her inner self does not mean that person has been lying or cheating. Classifications for sports competitions are based on physical attributes, not gender identity. In 1976, Caitlyn Jenner had the body of an incredibly athletic man, despite identifying as a woman. Thus, Jenner competed with the men and set a world record when she beat them all at the Olympic games. Jenner gained no competitive edge from her gender identity during competition and should not be penalized after the fact.

Unfortunately, some women have been penalized or have had their privacy invaded because of hormonal imbalances or fears that men will compete as women. In 2014, Indian sprinter Dutee Chand was barred from international competition because she had hyperandrogenism, a medical condition where the body produces too many androgens, leading to male development in vertebrates. The Athletic Federation of India ruled that Chand’s high levels of androgens gave her an unfair advantage. FIFA has made it mandatory to perform “gender testing” on women currently playing in the 2015 Women’s World Cup to ensure that they are actually female, and not just men masquerading as women to give their national teams a competitive edge. Female testing, which Stanford bioethicist Katrina Karkazis described as inaccurate, discriminatory and “a solution in search of a problem” is invasive and offensive to women who have lived and competed as women their entire lives.

The big distinction between men and women with hormonal imbalances or who are transgendered and people like Bonds and Armstrong is that the latter make conscious and malicious attempts to cheat in their sports. Chand is not a cheater because she medically cannot regulate the androgens in her body. Jenner did not cheat because she did not use banned substances to alter her chemical makeup in ’76. Bond and Armstrong, however, used banned substances.

International sports regulators still need to find better solutions to allowing athletes like Chand to compete. Inevitably, there will also be athletes who are transgendered at the highest levels, just as there are Girl Scouts, actors, and soldiers who are transgender. Athletics, 4chan and society will just have to adapt and be more accepting.

Dan Morgan-Russell is a rising senior studying international relations, global economy.