Case Study: Ethical Dilemma: Fairness, Access, and Transgender Athletes

We like to think of sport as an inclusive institution. By and large, we believe that everyone should have access to sport. But sport also necessarily excludes. We have rules that are associated with the values of fairness and competitiveness that limit participation. For example, some recreational leagues limit the neighborhood or city from which a team can draw players because they want to prevent the recruitment of top players from other communities as a means to gain an advantage. The English Premiere League limits the number of teams in the first division, relegates the lowest-performing teams to a lesser division, and promotes the best performers from the second division in an effort to maintain a high level of competition.

Historically, dividing sport by sex has been a way that sport managers promoted fairness. Boys, in general, are bigger and stronger than girls. Thus, it seems fair to have athletes compete in sex-segregated groupings. Another exclusionary structure used to promote fairness is designation of weight classes. In the sports of rowing, boxing, and wrestling, competitors are divided by weight, which limits the problem of bigger, stronger athletes competing against smaller, weaker athletes. The Paralympic Games uses a system known as classification, whereby athletes with similar types of disabilities compete against one another. For example, in track and field, athletes who use wheelchairs race against one another, while athletes who are visually impaired race against one another.

On occasion, fairness value bumps up against the value of access. In most states, when a sport is not offered for one sex, boys can join the girls' team, and vice versa. Sometimes boys join girls' field hockey teams, and sometimes girls join boys' ice hockey teams.

High school wrestling is an interesting case. Not many states have enough interest in girls' wrestling to support teams or championships, so girls often join boys' teams. The National Wrestling Coaches Association (2016) reported that the number of girls participating in high school wrestling has increased from 804 in 1994 to 11,496 today. Indeed, girls appear so frequently in wrestling matches against boys that their participation in the sport is no longer news. In this sport, weight-class divisions mediate issues of fair competition. Weight classes may dissipate concerns about fairness because people understand all competitors will be competing against similarly sized athletes. Occasionally, girls exemplify excellence. Destiny Nunez, for example, won the 106-pound weight class title at the 5A Arkansas state meet in 2015. Nunez is the fifth girl to win a "boys" state high school championship in wrestling in the United States (Elliot, 2015).

In 2017, however, an interesting ethical dilemma arose in Texas high school wrestling. In August 2016, the Texas University Interscholastic League (UIL) enacted a rule that athletes are to compete either as male or female according to the sex registered on their birth certificate. While this rule can be seen in a variety of ways, on some level it reflects this value of fairness and competition. We can also see this rule as part of a political/cultural backlash against transgender youth. Whatever the motivation of the superintendents of schools in Texas, the rule created an ethical dilemma for the UIL, the governing body for high school sport in the state, the very next season.

Mack Beggs, a 17-year-old transgender boy, would have preferred to wrestle against boys. He was more than a year into his female to male transition when he qualified for the state championship. His testosterone therapy no doubt was enhancing Beggs' strength. Some argued it gave him an unfair advantage over the girls he wrestled against. Because Beggs had a medical reason for taking the testosterone therapy according to UIL rules, he was allowed to compete. The rules, however, barred him from competing in the boys' division, as his birth certificate listed Beggs as female. Beggs competed against girls in the 110-pound weight class, winning 56 straight matches and the state title for girls in 2017.

Despite strictly following the rule, Beggs' success was controversial. Some parents of other female wrestlers vocally objected to him wrestling girls. A few competitors forfeited matches rather than wrestle against Beggs. One parent evenfiled a lawsuitagainst the UIL.

Other sport organizations address the issue of transgender athletes differently than Texas's UIL. The NCAA, for example, allows athletes transitioning from female to male and taking testosterone to compete on men's teams but not women's teams. Collegiate cycling allows athletes to self-identify both their skill level and gender identity. The International Olympic Committee no longer requires reassignment surgery, but instead has deemed female-to-male athletes eligible to compete in men's competitions without restriction. Male-to-female athletes must show proof that their testosterone levels are below a designated cut-off level for at least one year before competing in women's competitions.

Questions for Discussion

1. What is the right thing to do? Should Beggs compete against boys or should he follow the rule of competing according to the sex recorded on his birth certificate? Does it really matter all that much because the athletes all weigh 110 pounds or less? If it does not matter, then what about a transgender boy swimmer or basketball playerwould that be different?

2. Should the sport managers in the UIL have made an effort to seek an exemption for Beggs, or was their only responsibility to enforce the rules? Would it have been acceptable for the league to switch Beggs from the girls' division to the boys' division in mid-season once it became clear he had an advantage over the girls he was wrestling?

3. Should the UIL revisit its rule insisting that high schoolers compete according to the sex registered on their birth certificate regardless of their gender identity?