Transgender in modern olympic sports: problems and ways of their solution

Abstract

Background. In recent years, there have been active disputes and disagreements among international sports leaders, including representatives of the International Olympic Committee, about the possibility of including transgender athletes in the number of participants in the Olympic Games. Objective of the review: to analyze of the modern scientific literature data to substantiate the possibility of admitting transgender women to participate in the women’s competitions of the Olympic Games. Review results indicate that the number of transgender candidates for participation in sports of higher achievements may be caused by the increase in the transgender population in the world. Currently, there is no significant scientific evidence on the biological benefits that hinder the integrity of transgender women’s competition in women’s sports. There is also no evidence that transgender women who have opted for testosterone suppression (e.g. hormone therapy to confirm sex and/or surgical removal of the sex glands) retain an indefinite advantage over cisgender athletes. To be more precise, current evidence suggests that any biological benefits of transgender women in athletic performance do not fall outside the range that is observed among cisgender female athletes after testosterone suppression. However, experts disagree in the field of medicine about the morphofunctional differences of transgender female athletes and cisgender female athletes, society’s rejection of female athletes after transgender transition, the indecision of International Olympic Committee representatives in solving this problem in women’s sports relevant and extremely painful for healthy women, sportswomen, for the development of sports in general and women’s sports in particular.Our further research will be aimed at expanding the study of the conceptual foundations of combining two key areas of research - medico-biological and socio-cultural, with integration into the practice of sports as one of the actual issues of our time that require a theoretically justified and practically proven solution.