Author: Ellie Cochran

I am a mixed-race, disabled, transfemme individual living in the United States.

During my initial college search around 2014, I would sometimes experience an odd, almost physical sensation while touring campuses around the country. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about the experience felt very alienating. I didn’t feel like I belonged there, and I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.

As a trans person, it’s very difficult for me to just “be myself” in public. I’ve been systemically harassed by police, accosted by strangers, and denied access to public spaces. I’ve been denied employment, denied the right to self-identify on official documents, and denied the right to live authentically. I’ve been denied the right to be myself, and I’ve been denied the right to be safe.

To exist freely and authentically is not often a privilege that is allowed to a trans prospective student. It can be hard to let one’s guard down far enough to participate in the college experience, to make friends, to build connections, to ask questions. You never know what latent prejudice lies behind a passing remark, and you’re always expected to be a spokesperson for your entire community. It’s exhausting.

This is the aspect of the trans education experience that must be discussed; the college experience is difficult for everybody, but students in minority groups must contend with increased stress levels and environmental diffculties outside of assignments and campus life. Mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD, which occur more frequently in trans populations due to our targeted minority status, can present difficulties in executive function. This results in students who may appear to be floundering to the outside observer, but who are in fact trying their best against impossible odds.

In my search for grauduate schools, I’ve found that the same issues persist. Even some of the most inclusive colleges and universities are not always necessarily affirming in their systemic assumptions. When entering information into paperwork, forms, and applications, I am often forced to choose from a limited number of options which do not accurately reflect the reality of my demographics and identity. This can be frustrating and confusing at best, or retraumatizing and dysphoria-inducing at worst.

I am often asked to provide documentation of my identity, which can be difficult to obtain for many trans individuals. The process of obtaining legal documentation of my identity is expensive, and can take years. I’m fortunate to be in a position where I can afford to pursue the process, but many trans prospective students are not. This can be an invisible barrier to entry which is difficult to overcome.

It is my hope that by sharing information about these issues, I can help make these invisible barriers more evident. Access to information and higher education must be equitable, and it is our responsibility as a society to make sure that our students are not being held back by systemic issues which are out of their control. Let’s share our voices and our experiences, and together we can create a more equitable world for all.

This editorial was originally published on the Sintelligent Design weblog.

Gender policing in sports has a blatantly racist history, often being disproportionately performed on Black woman athletes regardless of whether their gender identity conforms with their birth assignment. Even just this year, former Polish sprinter Marcin Urbas requested Olympics organizers run a “thorough test” on Namibian athlete Christine Mboma to “find out if she definitely is a woman” after she ran a semi-final time of 21.97 seconds in the women’s 200-meter race. Mboma, an intersex athlete, was not allowed to run her signature 400-meter race due to “elevated testosterone levels.”

Including transgender athletes in sports categories that match their gender identity is the correct thing to do, full stop. Aside from being the affirming thing to do, the underlying assumptions most cisgender people make about trans bodies to justify their exclusion are incorrect from the start, and reactionary transphobes fail to consider the repercussions that gender policing in sports has on everyone, cis athletes included.

Since 2018, cis athletes including South Africa’s Caster Semenya, Kenya’s Margaret Wambui, Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba, Namibia’s Beatrice Masilingi and others have all been banned from competing in Olympic events due to regulations surrounding differences in hormonal development. What these short-sighted and racist policies fail to take into account is the fact that training always trumps biology.

Even the occasional mutations that give a genuine biological advantage—for example, Michael Phelps’ wingspan and double-jointed ankles—aren’t gendered and aren’t useful without relevant training and practice. “One high jumper could be taller and have longer legs than another, but the other could have perfect form, and then do better,” explained Andraya Yearwood, a student track athlete and ACLU client, “One sprinter could have parents who spend so much money on personal training for their child, which in turn, would cause that child to run faster.”

The idea that there are distinct “male” and “female” hormones is misleading. Who would accuse a female-assigned cisgender woman who has elevated testosterone levels of not being a woman? In fact, ovaries themselves produce testosterone. Everybody has varying levels of chemistry determining the effects their endocrine system has on their body. Why choose to discriminate on this rather than any other biological variable, such as lung capacity or limb length or foot size?

But what about trans athletes specifically? The thing is, trans people don’t have any specific advantages categorically, since trans people come in all heights, shapes, and sizes! According to New York Endocrinologist and Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery Dr. Joshua D Safer, “A person’s genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance.” Even if a trans athlete is taller than a competitor, height doesn’t really convey an advantage either—Serena Williams is 5’9″ and still has many more grand slam titles than her taller peers.

Ultimately, the gender divide in sports is another example of a false binary that cisgender society has convinced itself is dictated by something other than consensus agreement. A trans woman who takes estrogen will have about the same muscle density and ability to generate muscle as a cis woman. Likewise, a trans man who takes testosterone can generate about the same muscle density as a cis man. Athletes regardless of hormonal chemistry achieve similar strength gains when training under the same program, and runners who are capable of similar performances do not vary widely in body composition. Wouldn’t it ultimately make more sense to bracket athletes by weight class or a similar metric rather than gender? The goal of making a talking point out of gender inclusivity in sports has never been about fairness or a love of competition—it’s a thinly-veiled push to exclude trans people from society and perpetuate a culture that sees trans identities as shameful.