Trans Women in Sports: Facts Over Fear

Trans athletes, especially trans women and girls, have come under fire over the last few years, but trans women have been openly playing in women’s sports for decades. Trans women continue to be massively underrepresented in high school, college, and professional sports, moreover, those who do compete aren’t usually dominating their fields.

Despite these facts, the issue has proven to be an effective scapegoat for politicians even though many Americans are more directly impacted by issues such as rising costs and lack of affordable housing. This bizarre focus on trans people, who make up approximately 1% of the population, is demonstrated by the fact that as of March 15, there have already been over 745 anti-trans bills introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2025 alone.

Unfortunately, the reality is that even those who consider themselves allies to the trans community can have a hard time talking about trans participation in sports, so we’ve put together some information we hope will help.

Trans people are estimated to make up 1-2% of the population of the United States; however, trans people make up less than less than 0.002% (10/500,000) of US college athletes, and even fewer of recent Olympians (0.001%) identify as trans.

The participation of trans women in women’s sports is not new. There are many examples over the last several decades of transwomen competing in sports:

In 1977, Renee Richards competed in women’s tennis as a trans woman and reached the doubles final in the US Open; however, she did not win. Richards and her doubles partner Betty Ann Stuart lost the finals to Martina Navratilova and Betty Stove. Stuart, Navratilova, and Stove were all cis-gender women.

In 2018, Veronica Ivy became the first transgender world track cycling champion, winning first place in the UCI Women's Masters Track World Championship for the 35–44 age bracket.

In 2021, Laurel Hubbard competed in weightlifting at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Despite widespread media attention, she won no medals.

When trans people do participate in professional and competitive sports, their participation is carefully regulated by national and international standards to ensure it is fair. We should not be looking to politicians or pundits - many of whom have never been to a women’s sporting event - for guidance on how to regulate women’s sports.  It’s important that we consider the opinions of experts and, more importantly, follow the science.

There is decades of research and precedent from medical journals and sports governing bodies that have helped establish clear guidelines to ensure both inclusion and fairness in sports.

A 2021 study published in the Journal Sports Medicine has found that there is no scientific evidence to support policymakers’ attempts to ban transgender women in sports.

In November 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) released its Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations. This framework was developed after a two-year consultation process with over 250 athletes and stakeholders.

More recently a 2024 study, funded in part by the IOC and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, concluded that transgender women athletes may actually have several physical disadvantages when competing with cisgender women. Some of the study’s key findings:

Despite all of this evidence, some policy makers continue to scapegoat trans women athletes, prioritizing what they perceive to be winning political narratives over the facts.

Unfortunately, the truth is that these attacks on trans athletes endanger all women by creating an environment of fear, encouraging false allegations, and laying the groundwork for invasive and discriminatory screenings that open the door to abuse—and it’s already happening.

Several cisgender women athletes have been accused of being trans by fellow athletes, the media, and policymakers. Transphobia continues to be weaponized to undermine cisgender women, especially women of color, subjecting them to ridicule, false accusations, and invasive medical examinations. Some of these cisgender women are even banned from competing because they do not conform enough to the ideal.

Caster Semenya is a South African cisgender woman and middle-distance runner whom, following her gold medal victory at the 2009 World Athletics Championship, was asked to undergo sex verification tests by World Athletics due to her appearance and prowess. She later was cleared to compete in women’s competitions and won a gold medal in the 2016 Olympics. In 2019, new World Athletics rules required Semenya to take medication to suppress her naturally occurring high levels of testosterone in order for her to continue to compete. Semenya refused to undergo treatment and sued the World Athletics for discrimination.

Similarly, Imane Khelif, a cisgender Algerian professional female boxer, was disqualified from the 2023 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships shortly after completing her gold medal in the final round for unspecified medical reasons relating to her gender. She later competed in the 2024 Olympics and despite being cleared by the International Olympic Federation (IOF) to compete in women’s competitions, was falsely accused of being trans following a match with Italian boxer Angela Carini. Carini withdrew 46 seconds after the match commenced, claiming that the match was unfair, sparking a baseless controversy over Khelif’s gender.

In June 2014, Dutee Chand, an Indian athlete, was investigated and subsequently excluded from selection for the Indian team over accusations of her gender and appearance.

At the 2020 Olympics 6 African runners: Christine Mboma (Namibia, 400m), Beatrice Masilingi (Namibia, 400m), Aminatou Seyni (Niger, 400m), Caster Semenya (South Africa, 800m), Margaret Wambui (Kenya, 800m), and Francine Niyonsaba (Burundi, 800m) were all withdrawn from their events because they did not meet the eligibility regulations due to their naturally occurring testosterone levels and appearance.

This list of cisgender women athletes accused of being trans is by no means exhaustive, but it highlights the harmful impacts of anti-trans policies on all women.

The trans-panic around women’s sports is also impacting children. Florida implemented a law in 2021 banning trans children from playing sports that align with their gender and permitting schools to subject minors to genital inspections. New Jersey and New Hampshire followed suit in 2022 and Kansas in 2023. Ohio enacted a similar ban that same year, though the state’s Senate revised the enforcement method to replace potential genital checks with birth certificate verification. At the federal level, a bill was introduced and passed in the United States House of Representatives earlier this year which would have instituted a national ban and set a dangerous precedent. Fortunately, US Senate Democrats were able to block the bill that would have banned trans youth from playing sports across the country and would have exposed countless women and girls to invasive investigations and potential abuse.

To be clear, there are real, pervasive threats to women and girls in sports that has nothing to do with trans people’s participation—threats that are being largely ignored by those who call themselves champions of women’s sports. A 2016 USA Today investigation found that at least 368 young gymnasts reported being victims of sexual abuse over the past 20 years. More than 100 coaches and gym officials were accused of abuse, yet USA Gymnastics failed to track predatory coaches, allowing them to move between gyms unchecked and exposing more young girls to harm. Requiring athletes to undergo genital inspections or other invasive methods of verification puts young athletes at even higher risk of abuse.

In 2023, UN Women, UNESCO, and the Global Spotlight Initiative released the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in Sport handbook, highlighting key issues and strategies to combat violence in sports. Key findings from the handbook:

The report underscores the urgent need for protecting all women athletes from violence and discrimination in sports, and yet, none of the bills claiming to protect women and girls sports address any of these concerns.

Rather than protecting women’s sports, bans on trans athletes encourage bullying, discrimination, and even violence against women and girls. These bans can lead to invasive screenings that violate privacy and increase the risk of abuse. History has shown that sports institutions continue to fail to protect young athletes from predatory conduct, as seen in the USA Gymnastics scandal, and identified in the 2023 UNESCO, UN Women, and Global Spotlight Initiative report. Trans exclusionary policies do not address the real threats to women athletes like sexual violence and harassment, and in fact expose all women to more harm.

Good policy is based on the facts and should be written with the goal of making us all safer. Trans women are not a threat to cis women. Trans women have long been a part of women’s sports, and their inclusion has been analyzed and supported by scientific research and the expertise of international sporting bodies. It’s time we acknowledged the truth, so that we can do the work of supporting all women and girls.