Female athletes worldwide have lost nearly 900 medals to transgender-identifying male competitors who have intruded into women’s sports.
Titled “Violence against women and girls in sports,” the August study conducted by the United Nations found that by March 30, 2024, over 600 female athletes in more than 400 women’s division events across 29 different sports were defeated by transgender-identifying men. Male athletes have taken over 890 medals from female athletes, the report said.
“The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males,” the report said.
Created by U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, the report was presented to the U.N. General Assembly last week. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International was also at the U.N. with prominent female athletes to demand that the body protect safety and fairness in women’s sports. The event featured Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, U.S. collegiate athlete Lainey Armistead, ADF International CEO Kristen Waggoner, and Alsalem.
Addressing the General Assembly, Alsalem noted that male intrusion into women’s sports has raised the risk of sexual harassment, assault, and voyeurism not just in the sporting arena but in the locker room and bathroom.
“As patriarchal structures continue to evolve, women and girls in sport are experiencing new forms of discrimination based on their sex,” she said. “One glaring example is opening the female category of sports to males, further undermining their access to equal opportunities and the right to participate in safety, dignity and fairness.”
Alsalem argued that the international and national sports governing bodies have abdicated responsibility over the issue by allowing transgender-identifying men to compete in women’s categories, with the only restriction usually being that male entrants meet testosterone requirements.
“Impunity fosters the culture of silence and injustice, and that is brought about in part by the autonomous regulatory frameworks of sports organizations that we have, which non sufficiently incorporated human rights lens or framework in the work, and they tend to prioritize reputation and winning over justice and accountability to victims, she added.
Multiple female athletes have been injured by transgender-identifying competitors. Payton McNabb, a female former high-school volleyball player from North Carolina, suffered a concussion and other long-term health problems after a trans-identifying male spiked a ball at her head. In April 2023, McNabb testified to the North Carolina legislature that she still experiences impaired vision, partial paralysis on one side of her body, anxiety, and depression from the fact that she stopped competing altogether due to the physical and mental trauma.
In combat sports, where the stakes are already high, male participants in the women’s ring could make it a life or death situation. USA Boxing, a major governing body for Olympic-style, amateur boxing, adopted a “transgender policy” as part of its 2024 rule book which allows male athletes who identify as women to compete against females, with some constraints. In order to qualify to compete against women, males must undergo gender-reassignment surgery and submit to blood testing for four years before competition to ensure their testosterone levels remain below 5 nmol/L, well above the average female level above 1.5 nmol/L. It is now well established that testosterone reduction does not negate natural male physical advantages, which are especially pronounced in boxing.
“Some sports federations mandate testosterone suppression for athletes in order to qualify for female categories in elite sports,” Alsalem wrote in her report. “However, pharmaceutical testosterone suppression for genetically male athletes — irrespective of how they identify — will not eliminate the set of comparative performance advantages they have already acquired.”
Earlier this month, female soccer players at a New Hampshire high school boycotted a game because of safety concerns over a male player on the opposing team. Several members of the Hillsboro-Deering High School Girls Soccer team refused to play against the Kearsarge Regional High School team, whose star athlete is a male named Maelle Jacques. At least five girls on the varsity squad bowed out after learning of the male’s participation, Hillsboro-Deering parent Betsy Harrington told the NHJournal. Hillsboro-Deering had to call in JV players to compensate for the missing players.
“This isn’t about transgenderism,” Heather Thyng, the mother of a Hillsboro-Deering player, told the outlet. “This is about biology for us and the increased physical risk when playing a full contact sport against the opposing sex.”