Transgender Women’s Right to Participate in Sport: Balancing Inclusion and Fairness
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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9467-9613
Abstract
The classification of athletes into male or female categories becomes particularly challenging when an individual’s biological sex and gender identity do not align. The participation of transgender women in sport gives rise to a tension between two fundamental principles: the principle of inclusion and the right of transgender persons to participate in sport, on the one hand, and the principle of fairness and safe competition for cisgender women, on the other. Given the contemporary significance of this issue and its limited scholarly treatment, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of transgender women’s right to participate in sport. Following the introductory considerations, the authors examine the right to participate in fair sports competition, highlighting the challenges faced by sports organizations in ensuring this right. The central part of the paper analyses the physical characteristics of transgender women that may be relevant to athletic performance and presents the principal arguments both for and against restrictions on their participation in sports competitions, with due regard to the realization of the right to sport as a fundamental human right. In the concluding section, the authors argue that certain anatomical and physiological characteristics of transgender women may raise concerns regarding fairness and safety within female sports categories. At the same time, they contend that it is necessary to develop mechanisms that would enable transgender individuals to exercise their right to sport through alternative sports categories classification models.
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