By: Richard McRae
In the workout community, few trends have been as successful and widely accepted as Crossfit. The Crossfit regimen is famous for its lack of routine and rapid results, as well as the strong community that has been built around it. According to Crossfit, their program “delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive.” Crossfit goes beyond simply moving weights around and instead focuses on building a community of exercise fans who work together to inspire and motivate each other. So then why is Crossfit excluding one of their own?
Chloie Jonsson is a personal trainer, a sometimes-model, and a Crossfit fanatic. Last year she was barred from competing in the female category of the Southern California Crossfit Games. Crossfit’s reason for barring her from competition? Chloie was born a man.
As reported on CNN, Jonsson is currently suing Crossfit for “discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress and unfair competition” and is seeking damages in the amount of $2.5 million. This issue brings about important questions on equality for the transgender community in our country. A recent poll conducted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention shows staggering rates of suicide attempts among transgendered individuals, with 46% of transgendered males and 42% of transgendered females having attempted suicide during their lifetime. This demonstrates that transgender equality is an important conversation in the LGBT community. It is because of the importance of this issue that many are surprised at the stance Crossfit has taken to exclude Jonsson from competing as a female in their competition. To understand why Crossfit was right to prevent Jonsson from participating in the competition as a female (she was permitted to participate as a male), it’s important to look beyond social issues and look at biology.
What does gender reassignment do?
According to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), gender reassignment includes any of the surgical procedures that can be performed to treat gender identity disorder. This can include removal or reshaping of the genitalia, breast removal or augmentation, hormone injection and laser hair treatment. Hormone replacement therapy specifically can reshape an individual’s body to more closely resemble the appearance of the opposite sex. In many cases this gives a transgender male-to-female individual a more feminine looking body, lessens muscle tone, and softens facial and physical features. For all intents and purposes, a person who has undergone full male-to-female reassignment therapy and hormone replacement is female.
What does gender reassignment not do?
Sexual dimorphism is the term that refers to the inherent biological differences between members of the opposite sex. Human males and females have a few key biological points of sexual dimorphism that are a result of different evolutionary roles. As the primary hunters, males developed stronger musculature, faster twitch reflexes and different anchor points for muscles and tendons (known as insertion points). These differences create distinct changes in muscle leverage and usage along the length of the bone. This causes men and women of the same relative size and musculature to be able to lift very different amounts of weight. In a study to determine maximal power between the two genders, the Journal of Health and Physical Activity discovered that due to their sexual dimorphism, male swimmers had much better performance than female swimmers of comparable physical conditions. Another study reported in the Sport Science Review demonstrated that men and women of comparable weight, size and musculature lifted dramatically different amounts of weight, with females having 37% - 68% of muscle strength of men overall.
Although gender reassignment and hormone replacement therapy can, in many ways, change a male’s appearance to more closely resemble a female, there are certain bio-mechanical advantages that a previously-male competitor will always have, no matter at what stage they are in their therapy.
Why should Chloie Jonsson not be allowed to compete as a woman?
As a transgender woman, Jonsson has every right to be treated with the equality and respect of any other woman; but Jonsson lived and worked out as a man for most of her life, not undergoing gender reassignment therapy until she was 27 years old. Although hormone replacement therapy has given her a more feminine body, she has the distinct bio-mechanical advantages inherent to most male-born athletes. If these advantages seem trivial, keep in mind that the United States Marine Corps has changed their physical fitness standards to remove the pull-up requirement for women. As reported in the Marine Corps Times, these changes were instituted “after testing showed that more than half the female recruits at boot camp could not perform at least three.” These changes are due to the fact that female physiology differs from male physiology in matters of strength and endurance. If Jonsson were allowed to compete with women in the female category she would be at a distinct advantage that neither she, the other competitors or Crossfit would be able to compensate for.
Maybe we have reached a point where we can stop discussing whether or not transgender individuals are fully male or fully female, and instead accept that the binary of two sexes does not represent all of humanity. Instead of banning Chloie from competing, maybe a new category should be opened up for all Crossfit athletes in the transgender community.
Richard McRae is a military veteran, MBA graduate, and part-time author. When he isn’t researching science or business topics you will likely find him painting, reading, or planning out his next book. You can check out his first book, Wrath of the Fallen on Amazon.com. As an ally he also maintains an LGBT support page at www.facebook.com/ALadyForTiara
Online Resources:
https://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/07/us/transgender-lawsuit-crossfit/
http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/AFSP-Williams-Suicide-Report-Final.pdf
http://www.wpath.org/
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/537133/sexual-dimorphism
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20140127/NEWS/301270047/Marine-Corps-struggles-challenge-making-women-do-pullups
Text Resources:
Busko, Krzysztof; Gajewski, Jan, (2011). Muscle Strength and Power of Elite Female and Male Swimmers. Journal of Health and Physical Activity. 13 (), pp.3.1
Chen, Gong; Liu, Liu; Yu, Jing, (Aug 2012). A Comparative Study on Strength between American College Male and Female Students in Caucasian and Asian Populations. Sport Science Review. 153 (), pp.3-4
