Sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive or­ders were is­sued by the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed State of Amer­i­ca, Joe Biden, when he took of­fice in 2021. Among them was one based on the pre­ven­tion of dis­crim­i­na­tion based on gen­der iden­ti­ty and sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion of stu­dent-ath­letes. This move was cel­e­brat­ed by many LGBTQ+ ac­tivists across the Unit­ed States as it meant that trans­gen­der ath­letes, es­pe­cial­ly trans fe­males, were now el­i­gi­ble to en­ter fe­male sports at the high school and col­le­giate lev­els. If any in­sti­tu­tion, es­pe­cial­ly those re­ceiv­ing fed­er­al fund­ing, re­fused ad­mit­tance to these ath­letes, they would face ad­min­is­tra­tive sanc­tions.

This move re­ceived crit­i­cism from med­ical phys­i­ol­o­gists, sport­ing pun­dits and nat­ur­al-born fe­male ath­letes on whom the de­cree would have the most im­pact. How­ev­er, trans fe­male par­tic­i­pa­tion in women’s col­le­giate sport is not a new de­vel­op­ment, as it has been al­lowed by the Na­tion­al Col­le­giate Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (NCAA) since 2011.

The most no­table case is that of CeCe Telfer, a trans woman on the Franklin Pierce Uni­ver­si­ty track team, who qual­i­fied for the 2019 NCAA Women’s Di­vi­sion II Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships. CeCe fin­ished first in the 400-me­tre hur­dles fi­nals at the 30-inch women’s di­vi­sion height. Her height was cit­ed as a dis­ad­van­tage in the hur­dles. Telfer main­tains that be­ing born male did not grant her an ad­van­tage in her events and states that “... there are peo­ple who say I have the ben­e­fit of testos­terone. But no: I have no ben­e­fit. I’m on hor­mone sup­pres­sion, it doesn’t help. It’s an­oth­er dis­ad­van­tage.”

Her coach­es re­port­ed that she lost mus­cle mass and speed while un­der­go­ing testos­terone sup­pres­sion ther­a­py and so had no ad­van­tage.

This, how­ev­er, may not be com­plete­ly true, as no study has re­port­ed mus­cle loss greater than 12% with testos­terone sup­pres­sion, even af­ter three years of hor­mone ther­a­py. Males have ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40% greater mus­cle mass than fe­males, so even with testos­terone sup­pres­sion, trans women ath­letes may still have a 28% mus­cle mass ad­van­tage over fe­males. An­oth­er study pub­lished in the British Jour­nal of Sports Med­i­cine has sug­gest­ed that the 12-month treat­ments for trans women, pro­posed by World Ath­let­ics and the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympics Com­mit­tee, were not suf­fi­cient due to trans women still be­ing 12% faster than bi­o­log­i­cal women af­ter two years of treat­ment. There­fore, on a phys­i­o­log­i­cal ba­sis, it ap­pears that trans fe­males do have a bi­o­log­i­cal and hence sport­ing ad­van­tage over cis fe­males. De­spite these facts, to fos­ter a spir­it of in­clu­siv­i­ty, trans ath­letes are ad­mit­ted in­to fe­male sports.

Trans ath­letes are ma­tric­u­lat­ing in­to the pro­fes­sion­al sports are­na and the world sports gov­ern­ing bod­ies are mak­ing ac­com­mo­da­tions. The In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) (2015) guide­lines al­low trans women to com­pete in the women’s di­vi­sion once their testos­terone is held be­low 10 nmol/L. This is sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than that of cis-women, hence un­fair, but it is al­lowed.

Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ba­hamas and Ja­maica have pro­duced nu­mer­ous world-class fe­male ath­letes over the years, es­pe­cial­ly in sprint­ing events. Now, with the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee, along with oth­er sport­ing bod­ies, al­low­ing trans fe­males to par­tic­i­pate in women’s sports, it must be asked, how long will these Caribbean na­tions re­main world beat­ers?

The ti­tle of Olympic or World cham­pi­on comes with not on­ly the pres­tige of be­ing named the best, but with per­son­al ben­e­fits such as mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar en­dorse­ment deals, in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion and fame. It is al­so a brand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for the coun­try or club from which these ath­letes hail. Though this phe­nom­e­non has not yet af­fect­ed us much in the Caribbean, it would be naive to think that it will not hap­pen some­time in the fu­ture. Coun­tries and teams will do what­ev­er it takes to win, even if it means ad­mit­ting trans ath­letes to their con­tin­gent, be­cause frankly, it is le­gal, and no rules are be­ing bro­ken.

The case of Ms Telfer was de­lib­er­ate­ly high­light­ed, as she lived in Ja­maica up to age 12 be­fore her fam­i­ly even­tu­al­ly set­tled in the Unit­ed States. Trans­pho­bia and ho­mo­pho­bia are still ram­pant in Ja­maica and if she had re­mained in the is­land, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in sports as she is would nev­er have ma­te­ri­alised. Be­cause of cur­rent cul­tur­al and re­li­gious be­liefs in the Caribbean, trans ath­letes would more like­ly be off-tracked than be al­lowed on the field.

The ques­tion to be asked is whether the Caribbean is pre­pared to put bi­as­es aside and al­low trans ath­letes to rep­re­sent their coun­try in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Like it or not, oth­er na­tions will do any­thing to take the ti­tles we now hold. The world and sports are evolv­ing. Are we in the Caribbean will­ing to change with it?

In­ca Brady is a med­ical doc­tor prac­tic­ing in Ja­maica and is a Grad­u­ate Stu­dent in the Fac­ul­ty of Sport at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.