Transsexual sports, transsexual sportswriters

(Tonight, Christine Daniels on Sportsradio; see information at the end of this post)

Last week, Mike Penner --sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times-- announced he would soon become Christine Daniels. (Our post here).  Sportswriters called Penner 'courageous'.  Angry bloggers called the announcement  'unimpressive':

Whether you care or not, this is some funny shit.

Changing genders isn't funny nor is it shit.  Penner/Daniels follows Christina Kahrl (photo, below left), an editor at the Baseball Prospectus who transitioned in 2003.

Outsports, reporting on gay sports, carried stories on Penner. (and here) saying:

Transgender issues are barely on anyone's radar screen outside of the relatively small community of self-aware transgender people. They're the "T" in GLBT – always last.. I feel blessed to have met Molly Lenore, an incredible woman who joined the New York Gay Football League two years ago...In college, she was a man, and no one would have guessed Molly was deep inside him waiting to get out. But she did, and the people in her life are better for it. The people in Penner's life will be better for it, too.

Confusing.  What is 'transsexual'?  That term defines a male changing lifestyle and anatomy to a female or a female changing to a male.  That does not mean gay, nor does it indicate transvestism.

Gay means libidinous attraction to the same sex (gender).  Transvestites are men,generally heterosexual, who enjoy dressing as women;  this is referred to as transvestite fetishism (the men at the left).

Transsexuals can become heterosexual or homosexual.  Most we know become heterosexual; men change to females, then are attracted to males.  Before the change these men were not gay, but were heterosexual males.  This is not a hard and fast rule. There are transsexual females who are attracted to other females.

Why the change?  There are a myriad of reasons: depression, personality problems, and feelings of always being a women trapped in a man's body.

What are the issues in sports?  In the male to female case, a mature male, who developed his skeleton and muscles under the influence of testosterone, competes as an adult female.  She will not have the typical male physiological dose of testosterone (she will take estrogen too) thus her muscle will atrophy; however she will be taller, and bigger than biological women.  The influence of testosterone on development cannot be erased.  Is that fair to biological women?

Transsexual athletes:

1.  Renee Richards holds the court as the first prominent transsexual athlete.  As Richard Raskind, he became a husband and father, an excellent ophthalmologist, strabismus surgeon and amateur tennis player.  As Renee Richards, she became controversial on the pro tennis tour. (reference). From NPR:

In 1976, I was one of the most famous people in the world. The paparazzi were on my trail twenty-four hours a day, hungry for any photo, the less flattering the better. The mainstream press was better, sometimes. People, Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated — I was featured in them all, an international phenomenon...

And what had I done to merit this interest?  I had undergone a male-to-female sex-change operation and then had the temerity to play in an amateur women's tennis tournament. Of course there was more to it than that, but basically that was the source of my infamy. To compound my audacity, I had not hung my head and apologized. I had gone to court, won my case, and played professional tennis as a woman...

Many people know that I coached Martina Navratilova to two of her Wimbledon championships.

2. Transsexual Charlotte Wood competed in amateur golf events before being banned.

The LPGA Tour, U.S. Golf Association and the Ladies European Tour have policies that players must be female at birth.  

The reason for that restriction was Charlotte Wood, a transsexual who was 50 when she finished third in the 1987 U.S. Senior Women's Amateur, and reached the semifinals of the U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur.  

The USGA put the "female at birth" clause in its entry forms in 1989, while the LPGA Tour added the restriction in 1991.

3.  Mianne Bagger successfully challenged the golf standards; she now completes in pro golf events.  She believes nonbiologic women show no advantage over  biological women.

The 37-year-old golfer said people were misinformed if they thought she had a physical advantage over the other women in the field, which includes Karrie Webb, Laura Davies and Rachel Teske.

"People aren't aware of what's involved with transsexualism," said Bagger, who is 1.75 meters (5 foot 10 inches) and 68 kilograms (150 pounds).

"People aren't aware that there are certain physiological changes you go through with hormone replacement therapy. We lose an amount of muscle mass and overall strength as a result."

"After surgery, those effects are permanent and irreversible."

4.  Michelle Dumaresq From Canada competes in mountain bike events.

Dumaresq was up front about her transsexual history, and her new friends were cool about it—at least until she beat them. Starting in 2001, she rocketed up the Canada Cup Mountain Bike Series from beginner to expert to pro, winning the national series in 2002. In 2003 she dominated again. Though she endoed during the Canadian National Mountain Bike Downhill Championship, held in Whistler last July, Dumaresq still won by a decisive margin of 2.62 seconds.

5.  Abby Libman is a male transsexual --female to male-- who competes in figure skating.

Libman, 19, has taken male hormones since 2002 and now identifies as a male  --  and he still skates. In the fall, the UC Berkeley sophomore plans to join the school's figure-skating club team. He's received permission from U.S. Figure Skating, the sport's governing body, to compete against other men.

Debate exists (SF Chronicle) over the fairness of transsexual athletes in their respective sports.

Last month, the International Olympic Committee enacted a policy on transsexuals before an elite athlete could force the question. The committee said transgender athletes could compete in the Olympics if they met certain requirements, such as completing genital reconstructive surgery and at least two years of hormonal therapy. The IOC also requires that "legal recognition of their assigned sex has been conferred by the appropriate official authorities," such as by a nation's courts...

The concern is that transgender women, having gone through male puberty, could have bigger bodies, denser bones and greater lung and heart capacity than their competition.

"It's the biggest insult to women and everything we've gone through," said Pat Connolly, a coach and former runner and pentathlete who participated in the 1960, '64 and '68 Olympics. "Gradually over the years, (the Olympics) started adding events for women. Why? To give women an opportunity to compete. ... Because there's an essential difference between men and women. Any dummy on the street knows the difference."

Here is a monograph on transsexuals and sports.  There are no guides for transsexual sportswriters, however.  Renee Richards advises cautions in general:

"I get a lot of letters from people in their 40s who are considering having this kind of operation. And I discourage all of them. It's not something for somebody in their 40s to do, someone who's had a life as a man. If you're 18 or 20 and have never had the kind of advantages I had, and you're oriented in that direction, sure, go ahead. . . . But if you're a forty-five-year-old man and you're an airline pilot and you have an ex-wife and three adolescent kids, you better get on Thorazine or Zoloft or Prozac or get locked up or do whatever it takes to keep you from being allowed to do something like this."

Catch the first interview of Christine Daniels on Sports Radio tonight:

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