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The Indiana Daily Student

opinion

COLUMN: Boston Marathon policy should be expanded to other athletic competitions

US NEWS BOSTONMARATHON 8 HC

In a written statement to NPR, the Boston Athletics Association said transgender participants will be allowed to run in the 2018 Boston Marathon as their identified gender, confirming the continuation of a policy that has been in place for several years. 

This rule should be expanded to all athletic organizations. 

The BAA’s informal policy, which is also used by New York and Chicago marathons, has been treated with skepticism and dismay by some Americans, like conservative author Ben Shapiro. 

On his Facebook Live podcast, Shapiro made various comments on what he erroneously believes to be the unquestionable dualities of gonadal and chromosomal sex — sex determined by genitalia and the 23rd chromosome, respectively — and postulated that “biological women will never win a marathon — ever” if this policy continues.

He also purports that higher levels of testosterone “allows men to have a significant athletic advantage over women.” In fact, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has suspended the International Association of Athletics Federations’ practice of hyperandrogenism regulation, or monitoring the testosterone levels of athletes, due to insufficient scientific evidence that higher levels of testosterone actually improve athletic performance. 

In one study published in the journal Clinical Endocrinology in 2014, an endocrine profile of 693 athletes showed “16.5 percent of the elite male athletes had testosterone below the lower limit of the so-called male range and nearly 14 percent of the women were above the female range.” 

Chromosomal variations outside of the typical XX and XY designations, as well as conditions such as polycystic ovarian syndrome, can lead to women or intersex individuals with higher levels of testosterone than is considered normal. In short, variations in sex are completely natural and should not be regulated or penalized in the athletics world. 

A clear corollary of this is that transgender individuals should continue to be allowed to compete as their identified gender regardless of whether or not they have transitioned. 

Biological sex has been a fraught subject in the world of athletics for thousands of years — according the the laws of Elis, women found attending, let alone participating in, the ancient Olympic games were to be thrown from the cliffs of Mount Typaion

In the modern era, female athletes have been banned from competing and subjected to humiliating and invasive sex-determining examinations, the results of which are, unfortunately, often publicized and thrust into the international spotlight. 

With these things in mind, it seems perfectly reasonable that the Boston Athletics Association will be continuing to put the focus on gender, not sex, by allowing transgender individuals to compete as their identified gender. 

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