Transwomen in Sport, Taking the Hit and Accepting Imperfect Allyship.

Transphobia harms ciswoman too.

I’ve written and rewritten this article about Imane Khelif half a dozen times.

The first version, full of shock and dismay, I wrote as the whole mess of the Paris Olympics unfolded. Seeing anyone dragged though the conservative media like that felt like a body blow. I catalogued and detailed the injustice that this magnificent athlete had to endure, adding my voice to the collective cry, “transphobia hurts us all!”

But what was I adding to the discourse? Nothing really new?

So, I rewrote it, dredging up my personal experiences with Roller Derby. I’m a transgender woman who plays a full-contact sport with cisgender women, that’s gotta be included, right? An impression from an transgender person who played international level sport as a man and then navigated the transition to playing against women? That’s absolutely going to add nuance and context. But then I remembered that despite how progressive my community is, there are still hold-outs. There are still players who’ve demanded I be expelled from games. Their unfounded fears about “safety” rooted in not “how I play” but in how this body “looks like it could be unsafe” in women’s sport.

I ditched that version too. The potential for butt-hurt and gossip wasn’t worth it.

So, I wrote a version framing it about the Olympics itself. A version about how every four years we endure this pageant of corporate interest and thinly veiled nationalism. Sure, it hides behind the mantra of “celebrating athletes”, but make no mistake, it’s an insanely profitable corporate reinvention of a three-thousand-year-old religious festival honouring the pantheon’s favourite fuck-boy, Zeus. This version was so fucking sassy and snarky! It was all about how athletes’ genitals are the perfect smokescreen. The perfect headline-grabber to distract the news-cycle from the cash pipeline of graft funneling public money into construction companies to build stadiums. Companies who then donate it back to politicians… but I had to ditch that too. In Australia you aren’t allowed to diminish the value of sport in any way. I think it’s probably more “un-Australian” to hate on sport than it is to be trans.

It was then that I figured it out.

I’m gonna write about how I need to get ready for next time. My community needs to be prepared for when the next wave hits. For now this tsunami of hateful rhetoric, enshrined in the Olympic news-cycle, has disappeared over the horizon. It still exists, however. Four years from now it’ll sweep back in having looped around the earth to hit us yet again.

That’s it! That’s the right angle!

I’ll write about how awful it was for Imane Khelif. How this is such a common, run-of-the-mill accusation for powerful women of colour. The same thing happened to Serena Williams. Same thing happened to Caster Semennya. Athletic women of colour suffer this indignity all the time. Hell, I know y’all remember what they were saying about Michelle Obama’s magnificent arms.

Yes. This feels right. This is the point I want, no… NEED to make.

Because in July 2028 it will be wall-to-wall “dangerous gender ideology” and “fairness in sport”. It will be op-eds and rants, screeds and think-pieces. Some people will claim they’re “just asking questions” while some will call for the outright eradication of trans people. It will be writ large, but we will endure and we won’t do it alone. I’ll be able to point to the heartbreaking treatment of Imane Khelif and the ensuing clap-back in her defence. That glorious, magnificent, online pile-on calling out the hate speech of the anti-trans right-wingers. All those progressive voices of the world leaping to Khelif’s defence? “She’s a ciswoman!” they cried! “She’s an excellent example of how transphobia harms ciswoman!” Correct! This is how any deviation from the norm is branded as being transgressive! Fucking PREACH!

That’s all the evidence I’ll need to remind my community that we can persevere.

Was this ally-ship perfect? Hell no! But it’s fine! People are allowed to be a little off the mark, right? I don’t expect everyone’s support to be faultless. So long as their hearts are in the right place, so long as they are doing something, anything to hold back that tidal wave in our defence! They’re allowed to shout, “She’s a biological woman!” even though it makes me wonder… Do all these folks consider me NOT to be a biological woman?

Doesn’t matter, not gonna dwell on that.

I’ve figured out my article. Now I can write with confidence.

All these overt, though sometimes flawed, statements show me that people WILL take up arms when the multi-headed hydra of discrimination rears up. Regular news outlets will chime in with all the queer outlets celebrating her worthy achievements and pointing out all the ways this unrelenting transphobia is a blight on us all. Yes. This is safe territory. Maybe I should read some of these articles…

Oh! Vogue Magazine! Very nice.

“In Suffering, Champions Are Born!” says Vogue Arabia. Okay, yeah. She suffered, that’s true! But she was a champion before that though, just to be clear… And while she was the victim of transphobia, she isn’t trans… like it would have been even worse for her, being the target of so much hate for something, but it’s not like it made her doubt her own gender identity or anything? Maybe it’s too much to expect that level of nuance from the mass media? Oh, I think they mean she suffered in her upbringing. Okay, that’s cool. Never mind, still great to see the support!

Out Magazine screams the headline “Imane Khelif delivers another K.O. on JK Rowling” reporting on the Vogue shoot. Oh, I see what you did there, cute. Did she even mention JK in the interview? Or did the sub-editor just add that for click-through?

Okay, now my social media feed is inundated with her fashion pics.

She looks AMAZING and all the queer news outlets are sharing, yep… and she is being described as an icon of gender diversity and champion of queer rights… A devoutly religious Islamic, heterosexual, cisgendered woman. Great.

Not sure I want to write this article now? But I’ve written thousands of words already.

I’m falling into yet another research spiral. This time it’s to check if Imane Khelif has said the words “trans people deserve the right to exist”… even just “queer people deserve the right to exist”. Fuck… please let there be something, anything. Yes, okay this looks promising… She asks people “to avoid bullying all athletes, because this has a great impact and is capable of destroying people”. That’s good. But, like… it’s actually pretty general and not about queer people at all. “I was able to overcome it all thanks to my faith in God, in myself, and my dream. Without such challenges, I would never have become a champion.” Okay, that’s not an endorsement either?

Has she ever publicly championed queerness?

All the excitement of a defamation suit against Elon Musk and JKR was just because it’s so rare to see these monied internet trolls get their comeuppance. That matter is specifically about how these professional agitators were factually wrong. Nothing in that suit has any to do with supporting transgender people.

I took a step back from it all. The idea for this article is falling apart.

All this fight to correct a factual inaccuracy is not a tacit endorsement of transgender people in sport, let alone an endorsement of transgender people to exist at all. The creeping dread has set in. The suspicion that the rabid defence of Kelif is more about how hurtful it must be to be called trans when you aren’t, and not… you know… that people shouldn’t think trans people are lesser. It’s then that I noticed something had been missing from this awful chapter in the discourse about how harmful transphobia is. Can you guess what it is?

What’s been missing is how transphobia harms transwomen.

How it harms transmen.

How it harms non-binary, agender and gender non-conforming people.

Suddenly all the ally-ship of the last few months felt different. In the defence of a cis woman accused of being trans there’s a big difference between saying “transphobia hurts cis women too” and saying, “so what if she was?”

There are plenty of trans athletes to be championed who legitimately deserve to compete. Andraya Yearwood, Lia Thomas, Alana Smith, Laurel Hubbard, Nikki Hiltz. Some didn’t even the chance. I’d have loved to see a fashion magazine celebrate their magnificent, powerful bodies. I’d have loved to hear their stories of suffering and perseverance given this platform too, but that would require us all getting over a painful fact…

Some people who support our right to exist still don’t want us to play sport.

I can’t help wondering about the where this collective cisgender-horror of what was done to Khelif lives. I’d like to think that for all those people who cried foul their motivations live in the chamber of their hearts reserved for fighting injustice. Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that instead it came from the pit of fear in their bellies. The fear of being accused of not being pretty enough, of not being white enough of not conforming to the pervasive Eurocentric view of “what is a woman”.

I can’t be certain.

One thing I’m certain of is that right now there isn’t much that’s a worse thing in the world to be than being trans. You only need to look in the papers, the websites and you can see all the people who hate us. So, I can’t really blame anyone for the source of their motivations in their defence of Khelif and I certainly don’t blame her. I hope the support she’s received reminds her that she’s an extraordinary athlete and should be immensely proud of her victories. These are victories that were earned more through training, diligence, and persistence than any “biological advantage” she may possess. All I could really say to her would be: “Dearest Imane, you look fierce and magnificent and as a fellow woman, regardless of if you think I am one or not, you are an inspiration to us all.”

Right now, the trans and gender diverse community needs all the allies and figureheads it can get. Even if they are devoutly religious, cis-het ones who’ve never outright said a work of support for us. Right now, I’m grateful for any ally-ship. It doesn’t need to be perfect. I’d just hoped it would be a little more explicit than this.
–S