Several athletes have set the foundation across the sports world to be accepted for their identities and recognized for their talents in what was once an exclusive hetero-normative world.
Michael Sam, drafted by the St. Louis Rams, was the first openly gay athlete to come out to play in the NFL in 2014.
A major story around the sports community, the news showcased the bravery and emotion surrounding the former All-American linebacker at Missouri.
However, in August of 2015, the former SEC Defensive Player of the Year was forced to hang up his cleats because of mental health reasons.
Though he never saw a snap in the NFL, Sam continued playing football in the Canadian league as a member of the Montreal Alouettes, but sent out a tweet stating that he had to walk away, at least for a while.
Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Olympic gold-medalist Bruce Jenner, challenged norms by coming out as a woman in 2015, following Sam in the highly-touted Arthur Ashe Courage Award presented at the ESPYs.
These two athletes in particular have stirred intense controversies and have ignited talks that have warranted a change in the way the sports world is perceived.
Frightening as it may be to take a stand in a global community that still celebrates masculinity and stereotypical male heterosexuality, the two are begging for a change to how athletes are defined and demonstrate a strong desire to be included.
No openly transgender athletes have competed in the Olympics and rules regarding the biological components of what defines someone in the two-sex system have stirred debates regarding what constitutes someone as male and female.
With the Rio Summer Olympics on the horizon, the conversation and scrutiny surrounding an individual who identifies with an alternate gender will likely redirect attention about what bathrooms people can use to where trans athletes can compete.
In 2004, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) released a set of rules and regulations for transgender athletes to compete in the Olympic games:
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- They must have gender reassignment surgery
- They must have legal recognition of their assigned gender
- They must have at least two years of hormone therapy
This isn’t just taking place at a professional level. More and more adolescents are not identifying with their assigned gender and have largely not been able to do so without controversy.
Varying from state to state, the rules and regulations of whether a transgender athlete can compete has facilitated a wide-range of responses.
Senior sprinter Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot made history by being the first trans person to compete for a high school state championship.
The Thai native placed 3rd in the 200-meter dash and 5th in the 100-meter. Wangyot’s participation filled a spot that Saskia Harrison said she felt she deserved.
“I’m glad that this person is comfortable with who they are and they’re able to be happy in who they are, but I don’t think it’s competitively, completely 100 percent fair,” Harrison told KTVA, an Anchorage CBS affiliate.
However, Wangyot said she had been taking female hormones, suppressing the genetic advantage she had with her biological predisposition of being born as a male.
“The people who are going to think, ‘It’s not fair to play with the boys’ – well, you don’t know that. It’s not easy,” she said in a Chilkat Valley News article. “It’s not like I was up and, ‘OK, I’m a girl right now.’”
A few of the parents have spoken against having their daughters compete against transgender athletes.
“It is not fair, and it is not right for our female athletes, and we have a responsibility to protect our girls that have worked really hard – that are working toward college scholarships,” Stephanie Leigh Golmon Williams of the Alaska Family Council said in a local radio interview on 710 KEEL.
According to the Transgender Policy and Law Institute:
“All children deserve the opportunity to play recreational sports. This publication provides basic information about how athletic associations and teams can create policies that welcome all children, including transgender children. This document specifically addresses policies appropriate for transgender children prior to adolescence.”
Alex Trujillo was forced to forgo her senior season on the volleyball team at Laguna-Acoma in 2015. Trujillo, a trans woman, was unable to compete because of her birth certificate. According to the New Mexico Activities Association, the only way she could play on the girls’ volleyball team would be to have her birth certificate changed to her current orientation.
“I just cried. It may not seem like a big deal, but it made me feel like I was less than my peers, that I didn’t have the same rights and the same privileges,” she said in a Huffington Post article. “And it really hurt knowing that I was still seen as a male in the state’s eyes.”
The controversies and debates surrounding these issues remain prominent in sports society and the right to fight for inclusion, regardless of sexual orientation and identification, has generated a change in thought of what defines an athlete.
Liam Cary-Eaves is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Liam_CE.
