Trans sport activist supports Gay Games "gender in sport" policy

From the blog of Jennifer McCreath:

Ok folks, the Gay Games 2014 gender policy might not be perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than the 2003 Stockholm Consensus policy currently in place for the International Olympic Committee. Obviously, the issues here are to find a balance between respecting the dignity and identity of the athletes vs ensuring a fair competition.

the IOC essentially requires the following:

- gonadectomy not less than 2 years prior to competing
- consistent hormone therapy within so-called normal ranges for not less than 2 years
- an independent medical review by IOC officials to ascertain that no competitive advantage exists
- full genital sex reassignment surgery performed
- sex/gender change legally recognized by government officials

Bottom line, the last 2 are totally unnecessary and have no barring on competition.

The gonadectomy is also NOT totally necessary to remove competitive advantage, nor is 2 years any particular type of magic number. as I have stated in this blog before, I was sufficiently disadvantaged within 1 year of hormones and just 6 months after gonadectomy.

As other trans activists have pointed out, this system also only addresses binary transsexuals and does not help resolve matters pertaining to transgender, non-op trans people, intersexxed, genderqueer, or cis athletes who have some sort of hormonal 'disorder'

So what the Gay Games have done to improve?

Keep reading from Jennifer's post on the Gay Games gender policy

Trans Olympic hopeful Keelin Godsey tells his story

From Our Group:

On July 21, 2012, I competed at the US Track and Field Olympic Trials in the women’s hammer throw. I competed as the first out female-to-male transgender athlete pre-medical transition. However, this was my second time competing at the Olympic Trials. At the 2008 Trials, I was closeted and placed seventh. This year, however, I was out and placed fifth. I only missed the team by a hair.

The major difference between the Beijing and the London trials was that I was fully, publicly out and everyone knew. My competitors knew. Their coaches knew. Everyone in my field knew. Prior to the games I was inundated with emails and messages, from all sorts of different people about my story and what they thought about it. Dealing with the pressure was a new avenue that I learned to navigate. I trained for 10 years to make the US team. I already had enough pressure on myself to make the team. At the same time, I felt additional pressure to succeed on behalf of the transgender community. Even though there was no direct pressure, I did not want to disappoint all the people who said they looked up to me. I wanted to give them something to look up to.


Keep reading HERE.

Video interview with trans athlete Keelin Godsey

Keelin Godsey is a world class hammer thrower. I've done hundreds of interviews with athletes over the past 30 years as a sports broadcaster and Keelin's story sticks to my bones, touches my heart, and opens my eyes like no other.

The transgender male recently excelled at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, competing for a spot on the women's hammer team. I had the pleasure of spending some time with Keelin the day after this competition. This video provides a glimpse into Keelin's story and the heart of an athletic champion.

A big thank you to my friend, Siobain Ryan, who donated her time and expertise as photographer and editor for this shoot.

Olympics struggle with ‘policing femininity’

Hat tip to Keph Sennett for this article from South Africa's The Star:

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA— There are female athletes who will be competing at the Olympic Games this summer after undergoing treatment to make them less masculine.

Still others are being secretly investigated for displaying overly manly characteristics, as sport’s highest medical officials attempt to quantify — and regulate — the hormonal difference between male and female athletes.

Caster Semenya, the South African runner who was so fast and muscular that many suspected she was a man, exploded onto the front pages three years ago. She was considered an outlier, a one-time anomaly.

But similar cases are emerging all over the world, and Semenya, who was banned from competition for 11 months while authorities investigated her sex, is back, vying for gold.

Semenya and other women like her face a complex question: Does a female athlete whose body naturally produces unusually high levels of male hormones, allowing them to put on more muscle mass and recover faster, have an “unfair” advantage?

In a move critics call “policing femininity,” recent rule changes by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the governing body of track and field, state that for a woman to compete, her testosterone must not exceed the male threshold.

If it does, she must have surgery or receive hormone therapy prescribed by an expert IAAF medical panel and submit to regular monitoring. So far, at least a handful of athletes — the figure is confidential — have been prescribed treatment, but their numbers could increase. Last month, the International Olympic Committee began the approval process to adopt similar rules for the Games.

Keep reading HERE.

Sports Illustrated takes an in-depth look at transgender atheltes

Sports Illustrated examines the situation of trans athletes, with a focus on Kye Allums and Keelin Godsey

Playing fields have long been segregated on the basis of sex. But what happens to the athletes whose physiology doesn't match their gender identity? Against whom do they compete? What obstacles do they face? And how are they being treated by sports' governing bodies?

Read it HERE.

Trans athlete to compete on US wome's track and field team in Olympics

From NPR:

A central question of gender and sports is facing officials as they prepare for London's Summer Olympics: In a system that segregates athletic competition by sex for reasons of fairness, where do transgender athletes fit?

Take, for example, Keelin Godsey, the first openly transgender contender for the U.S. Olympic team. Last month, Godsey qualified for the women's track and field Olympic trials in the hammer throw.

Godsey was born female, identifies as male, and competes in the female division — a situation that attracted the attention of writer Pablo Torre and Sports Illustrated. As Torre tells NPR's Michel Martin, cases such as Godsey's might present "the most thorny question" for sports organizers.

"For Keelin, it's a question of identity," Torre says. "Keelin's identity was formed as a women's sports athlete, before Keelin came out as transgender male. And the reality is, for a lot of college athletes who are transgender, they have scholarships, they have spots on their teams in elite sports, and they're physically that gender — physically female, for example, in Keelin's case. And really, that's enough for a governing body. Or, it should be enough."

Torre co-wrote a story about transgender athletes for Sports Illustrated's current issue. He's also a regular contributor to Tell Me More's Barbershop segment. And he says there are no physical or medical differences between Keelin and a biological woman — there have been no hormone treatments, for instance.

Keep reading and listen HERE.

Athletic Bilbao says no to homophobia on IDAHO

Via Errespetuz, a Basque trans group, a poster for IDAHO produced in collaboration with football team Athletic de Bilbao.

Audio of FGG contribution to 2011 Play the Game conference

Find the Play the Game 2011 website with more information, photos, video, program, etc. HERE.

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Audio from the session on "transgender challenges" from the 2011 Play the Game conference at the German Sports University in Cologne is now available.

Speaking at the session were Honorata Jakubowska of the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Marc Naimark, FGG VP for External Affairs, and Zeljko Blace of FGG member qSport.

Outsports roundup

A look at some recent stories from that fount of LGBT sport news, Outsports:

A story from the Windy City Times about the marriage of out pro bowler Scott Norton.

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American Samoa’s Johnny ‘Jayieh’ Saelua is reportedly the first openly transgender player in World Cup football history.

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New York Post columnist Lenn Robbins has a great column slamming St. John’s University college basketball fans for their use of gay slurs during last weekend’s game against the University of Arizona.

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance

Find out about events in your area HERE.

Pan Am Games news: trans athlete places in track and field in Guadalajara 2011, looking forward to Toronto 2015

From Outsports:

Keelin Godsey, a former track & field standout at Bates College, placed fifth in the hammer throw at the Pan American Games today as a member of the United States National Track & Field team. There were 14 women in the competition; Godsey threw a distance of 67.84m, which is his third-best distance ever.

Godsey is a male transgender athlete competing against women from Canada to Argentina. That may be a confusing dynamic to some, but he is in the same boat as Kye Allums: A pre-transition transgender athlete

See Keelin's blog HERE.


Read a great profile of Keelin by Dan Woog HERE.

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The Pan Am Games are taking place now in Guadalajara, but in 2015 they'll be coming to Toronto, where the FGG is currently holding its Annual General Assembly.

We had the pleasure of meeting with new member Outsport Toronto who is closely involved with the efforts of the local organizing committee to ensure all forms of diversity at the Games, and more important, to do so in a way that will leave a lasting legacy. The FGG is pleased with the offer of Outsport Toronto to continue to explore ways in which the FGG can support this great initiative.

Portrait of trans wrestler Donna Rose

Dan Woog has written a fine portrait of wrestler Donna Rose (see our posts on Donna HERE , HERE), HERE, and HERE, who is targeting two competitions: the 2012 Olympics, and Gay Games 9 in 2014:

David’s father was an academic, so the family moved often. Whether in California or Nova Scotia, though, sports provided a great way to make friends. David was “pudgy and klutzy” as a child, but in high school he discovered football and wrestling.

Playing linebacker was fun, but grappling really drew him in. He worked out, lifted weights and molded his body to a masculine ideal. In 1979, at Halifax’s Dalhousie University, he became Canada’s Maritime Provinces 158-pound champ.

He married, had a teenage son and embarked on a successful, lucrative career in information technology.

But even those accomplishments did not fully satisfy David. He’d always been masculine – never effeminate or girly – yet he never felt he fit in. In 1999, he came out to his mother as transgender. She was stunned. The realization was almost as stunning for David. “My sense of myself as an athlete had been the biggest part of my identity for years,” he – now Donna Rose – says. “There had been two seasons in my life: wrestling, and getting ready for wrestling.” It was hard to let that go.

Keep reading HERE.

NCAA announces new more inclusive policy for transgender student athletes

The National Collegiate Athletics Association, the governing body for university sport in the USA, has announced a new transgender policy for student athletes. We note that the authors of the policy, Helen Carroll and Pat Griffin, have also been consulted on the draft Gay Games gender in sport policy.

A new policy approved by the NCAA Executive Committee will clarify opportunities for participation by transgender student-athletes.

The policy is aimed at allowing the student-athlete to participate in competition in accordance with their gender identity while maintaining the relative balance of competitive equity among sports teams.

Approved at the August meeting and distributed via mail Sept. 7, the new policy will allow transgender student-athletes to participate in sex-separated sports activities so long as the athlete’s use of hormone therapy is consistent with the NCAA policies and current medical standards, which state:

A trans male (female to male) student-athlete who has received a medical exception for treatment with testosterone for gender transition may compete on a men’s team but is no longer eligible to compete on a women’s team without changing the team status to a mixed team. A mixed team is eligible only for men’s championships.
A trans female (male to female) student-athlete being treated with testosterone suppression medication for gender transition may continue to compete on a men’s team but may not compete on a women’s team without changing it to a mixed team status until completing one calendar year of documented testosterone-suppression treatment.

“As a core value, the NCAA believes in and is committed to diversity, inclusion and gender equity among its student-athletes, coaches and administrators,” NCAA Director of Inclusion Karen Morrison wrote in a memo to the NCAA membership. “Since participation in athletics provides student-athletes a unique and positively powerful experience, the goals of these policies are to create opportunity for transgender student-athletes to participate in accordance with their gender identity while maintaining the relative balance of competitive equity within sports teams.”

Development of the new policies was aided in part by a report from the National Center on Lesbian Rights and the Women’s Sports Foundation last October that provided guidance on how colleges and universities should accommodate the interests of student-athletes who have transitioned or are transitioning from one gender to another.

Co-authored by the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Director of the Sports Project Helen Carroll and GLESN (Gay, Lesbian dn Straight Education Network) project director Pat Griffin, who has overseen educational efforts for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in sports for the Women’s Sports Foundation, the report stresses that any transgender student-athlete “should be allowed to participate in any gender-segregated sports activity so long as that athlete’s use of hormone therapy, if any, is consistent with the national governing body’s existing policies on banned medications.”

The report emerged after both organizations sponsored a “think tank” entitled “Equal Opportunities for Transgender Student-Athletes” in 2009 that included representatives from the NCAA, the National High School Federation, and experts on transgender issues from disciplines ranging from law and medicine to advocacy and athletics. The think-tank goals were to develop model policies and identify best practices for high school and collegiate athletics programs to ensure the full inclusion of transgender student-athletes.

The report offers a comprehensive discussion of what the term “transgender” means and how to provide access and equal opportunities to the individuals it applies to.

In April, the NCAA Executive Committee heard a presentation regarding transgender student-athletes and noted the NCAA’s effort to better educate institutions about accommodating the interests of student-athletes who are transitioning and to develop Association-wide policies regarding transgender student-athlete participation in college sports.

The August decision was the conclusion of that process, which included input from NCAA member committees, including the Student-Athlete Advisory Committees, other sports governance consultants, the Women’s Sports Foundation and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Other sports organizations, such as the LPGA, USGA, USA Track & Field and others, also have policies targeted toward the participation of transgender athletes.

The NCAA will provide resources for its membership, including the Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes resource book; a CD that contains the resource book; a slide presentation to educate administrators and student-athletes; and a 30-minute video featuring Betsy Crane, director of graduate programs in human sexuality at Widener University and a subject-matter expert on transgender issues.

Keph Sennett asks: Where do transgender athletes fit into sports?

Keph Senett reports from the human rights conference held at the recent North American Outgames in Vancouver:

“SPREAD OUT!” their coach shouts encouragingly, turning away from the players to share her laughter with the moms and dads on the sideline. There might be something more adorable than six year-olds playing soccer, but I don’t know what it is.

At this age, girls and boys are pretty much the same: they wear matching jerseys and socks, and run after the ball with identical tireless enthusiasm. On the field, the red team moves en masse toward the blue team’s goal, and when a kid out in front stumbles and falls, they all do.

Their game may need work, but their concept of team is perfect.

All of this will change in another few years. As puberty hits, the boys will be funneled into programs with funding, and the girls will be encouraged to take up tetherball. Even those girls who will be able to find organizational support in quality training camps, sponsorships, and athletic scholarships will only be able to achieve the top of their sport in the women’s division.

Keep reading HERE.

Interview with trans triathlete Chris Mosier

ChicagoPride.com features this interview with Chris Mosier (see our previous post HERE):

This Sunday August 6th Chris Mosier will be one of over 3,000 athletes competing in the Nautica NYC Triathalon. It is an Olympic distance race consisting of a 1500m swim, 40k bike ride and a 10k run.

Chris is Odwella sponsored and he races on their Active Ambassadors team. This past March he entered a contest to win one of ten sponsorships by a world class fitness company known as TRX. There were over one hundred entries and Chris finished 6th.

What makes this triathlete unique is that Chris was once an MVP in women's sports. Chris a transman made the transition from female sports to male sports just a little over a year ago. Competing as a male in this years Nautica NYC Triathon is the same Triathon he competed in two years ago in the femalehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif catagory.

A native of Chicago now residing in New York, Chris takes some time from his busy training schedule to talk to us about sports, being a trans athlete and tackling social justice for trans athletes.

Keep reading the interview HERE.

KP: Where you an athlete

New York LGBT film festival features Renée Richards documentary

The NewFest LGBT film festival in New York will be featuring Renée, a documentary that tells the story of Renée Richard’s battle to enter the 1977 US Open as the first transsexual tennis player.

Simultaneously, it follows her today as she struggles to cope with a life of contradictions and personal conflict. Through interviews with tennis legends, family, friends and experts from the transsexual field; a story of perseverance, breakthrough and hardship unfolds.


For program details, visit the festival website HERE.

Donna Rose, trans wrestler, wins beach wrestling title

Thanks to Roger Brigham for letting us reprint this story from the Bay Area Reporter:

Rosen wins national wrestling championship

Last year, Donna Rosen made sports history by becoming the first transgender woman to compete in a sanctioned women's freestyle wrestling tournament, winning one match at the U.S. Open Women's Freestyle Wrestling Championships in Cleveland and earning a berth in the World Team Trials. (See HERE). It was her first mainstream wrestling match in 40 years.

Sunday July 10 she made her debut in beach wrestling by winning the 2011 Senior Women's U.S. Beach National Championships on the shores of Lake Ontario in Rochester, New York. Although she is better known as a transgender educator under the name Donna Rose, which she has used for the past decade, under USA Wrestling rules, she competed under her legal surname of Rosen.

"It was such a great weekend," she told the Bay Area Reporter. "This is the biggest title I have ever won. I am so excited. This is just the beginning."

Beach wrestling is a relatively new phenomenon that is more akin to sumo and Greco-Roman wrestling than it is to freestyle. Points are scored by taking opponents down or shoving them out of the ring. As Rosen, 52, was driving 900 miles from her home in South Carolina to Rochester, I talked with her on the phone about the importance of being sure not to overextend when pushing or throwing her opponent. It's a critical point because of the deceptive ease with which sand gives way under off balance footing, and Rosen had not even trained on sand before. As part of her dream to compete in the U.S. Olympic trials next year, she has been driving three hours each way to train with 2004 Olympic silver medalist Sara McMann and other elite wrestlers.

In her blog, Rosen wrote of her participation in the event.

"I know many trans people who support the notion of equal rights but stop short of being able to support competing against natal born women," she wrote. "I'm not going to argue about it – there are rules in my sport that cover this particular situation and I'm well within the guidelines. I've had my blood chemistry tested so I'm confident I'm good in that regard as well. But once you find yourself arguing about muscle memory or the lingering effects of growing up on testosterone or other things you find yourself in an argument that is as much emotional as logical. Those are arguments that have no winners. But as we look at the boundaries of being involved in life as men and women, and enjoying the unquestioned rights (and obligations) that come with the territory so, too, is this one of those. And so, too, are some of us going to want to participate. It's just that simple."

Rosen actually started her wrestling comeback in May 2006 in San Francisco. "The Memorial Day tournament there before the 2006 [Gay] Games in Chicago somehow started all this insanity for me again," she wrote me earlier this year, and she spoke in her blog of her undying desire to return to wrestling.

"How do you explain to someone that you do it because you enjoy it," she wrote. "Last year at this time I got (the urge) and didn't expect to compete again but here I am. Early last year I was coming off a hiatus that I never expected would end. But as with most things, passions are as hard to explain as they are to define. The main opponent in all of this is myself – mentally and physically – and in that regard I'm determined not to allow myself to stop myself. Where it leads? Who knows? I've stopped trying to rationalize this and am focused on simply doing."

Trans triathlete wins sponsorship deal

News from Outsports:

Trans triathlete Chris Mosier wins contest, earns sponsorship with TRX

Big congratulations to trans triathlete Chris Mosier, who locked up a sponsorship deal with TRX! He finished sixth out of about 100 triathletes hoping to get a sponsorship deal with the company; They gave deals to the top 10. The contest was based on YouTube video views, and we’re proud to have sent some new fans to him.

Kye Allums news: "Game Changer" video, and departure from his college basketball team

Trans athlete Kye Allums has made a video as a GLSEN Sports Project "Game Changer":

(View more GLSEN Sports Project "Game Changer" videos HERE.
Outsports reports:

Kye Allums, the first transgender Div. 1 college athlete whose story Outsports broke last November, has decided to not play on the women’s basketball team his senior season. While we can’t discuss specifics, we know this decision has been coming for a while. Having known Kye now for over a year, I know there were lots of aspects to this decision, and it wasn’t an easy one for him to make. The school has put a gag order on Kye since last year. While his mother has certainly been helpful in navigating Kye’s story over the last few months, I look forward to some day finally telling Kye’s story of his first season as a guy when college is behind him.

Kye suffered concussions this past season with in part led to this decision. Thankfully Kye is set to be enrolled next year with a hopeful graduation date of December 2011.

This weekend Kye will be in San Francisco to accept the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Spirit Award at their 2011 Anniversary Celebration. I’ll be in San Francisco for the event, and I can’t wait to finally meet him.

ESPN "Outside the Lines" interview with trans college basketball player Kye Allums

Kye's story was first reported in Outsports.


The interview was followed by a discussion with commentators including Helen Carroll of the NCLR Sports Project. My answer to reporter Wendy Parker, who wonders how Kye can describe himself as male while playing on a women's team: you heard the answer. He's got a scholarship to go to university. If you're willing to replace that scholarship, then if he's still playing on the women's team, you can ask your question.


Pat Griffin answers this much better in her blog post on the interview, from which we take this sample:

Wendy Parker is a knowledgeable sports reporter who focuses on and is committed to women’s sports. How she was tapped for this interview however is an interesting question. Her comments reflected a lack of understanding of transgender issues and insinuated that somehow Kye’s participation on a women’s team threatens the mainstream acceptance of women’s basketball. That is a big burden to place on the shoulders of an athlete who is merely trying to live his life openly according to what is true for him. Wendy even questioned Kye’s integrity by implying that he was only participating on the women’s team to retain his scholarship. How cynical of Wendy. Kye was very clear that he is attending GW to get an education and play ball. Having a scholarship is enabling him to do both. He earned the scholarship. Why would he suddenly not have a right to keep it?

Wendy also wondered why Kye would want to be so public about what she apparently considers a private issue no one should talk about. She misses the point that Kye is probably saving lives by being public about his own experience. As Kevin points out, we have a suicide problem among young people who are bullied because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity. Wendy, though professing to admire Kye, seemed more concerned about the effects on his teammates of playing on a team with a transgender man. In, perhaps, her most ridiculous comment, Wendy even implied that the GWU team’s fall from the top ranks is somehow Kye’s fault and that Kye’s participation on the women’s team reflects a selfish disregard for the effects of his presence on the GW program and his teammates.

I know from reading Wendy’s blog and from her comments on my blog that she considers discussions of “social causes” in sport to be nothing more than politically correct distractions from more important issues in sport. Wendy’s message to LGBT people in sport: Shut up and keep your identities to yourself. You make women’s sport look like a freak show and impede our ability to draw mainstream sports fans and writers. Wendy was especially upset that ESPN aired this segment on the opening day of the women’s final four for this reason.

Wendy continues this line of thinking in her blog, where she expresses “some puzzlement over a self-identified male who wishes to be true to himself but still wants a place — and a scholarship — on a women’s team…Those were questions he avoided during the interview, and the lack of candor was obvious.”

There was no lack of candor in Kye’s responses, only a lack of understanding on Wendy’s part. I think Kye was incredibly open in his responses about his experiences and his relationship with his mother. It is really cynical to accuse him of lacking candor.