Let’s hear more from Harper

Bravo to Solidarity for the interview with Joanna Harper, who is an authoritative voice on trans rights and sport ( 676). Let’s hope the paper carries more interviews and articles of this quality on these important matters.

Harper is right about the current climate of hostility towards trans women and men, which socialists are duty-bound to oppose vigorously. However this context cannot rule out tackling difficult concrete questions. Sport is not simply a wedge issue to attack trans rights — it is also a mass participation activity where equality, fairness and inclusion matter to billions of people.

Harper makes two significant points that deserve more coverage in the paper. First, she accepts that trans women have “advantages” that “certainly exist” in sports. Solidarity should explore the extent of those advantages and their significance across a range of sports. Harper’s forthcoming Loughborough study referred to in the interview will hopefully shed some light on this.

Second, Harper argues that “reducing testosterone to typical female values via hormone therapy mitigates the advantages of having gone through a testosterone-fuelled puberty — mitigates, does not eliminate”. Again, it will be interesting to read Harper’s new research when it is published — and any other evidence on these under-researched questions.

Both points go to the heart of the discussion about any rules excluding trans women from women’s sports. But if both propositions are true: (i) that trans women have significant advantages in sports and (ii) that hormone therapy only mitigates, but does not eliminate these advantages; then some rules for trans women are necessary for women’s sports.

Harper concedes this point, at least to some extent, when she concludes that, for elite athletes, “trans women should bring their testosterone to female-typical values”.

I think Harper is mistaken to draw a distinction between elite sports, where some rules should apply, and grassroots sports, where she argues for self-identification. Nobody gets to elite level unless they participate at lower level events. Millions of children and adults take part in grassroots sports and care just as much about the fairness of competition.

If the physiological differences are significant, then surely any rules would apply beyond elite level to much of the grassroots. Whether it is football, rugby (league and union), cricket, athletics, tennis or any other sports — both for participants and spectators — fairness matters. Missing out on the podium or scoring the winner is also a matter of equality for those teams and individuals involved.

Maxine Carpenter, London