Why are People REALLY Opposed to Transgender Athletes?

Recently, many sports organizations have adopted policies restricting or banning transgender athletes from competing in line with their gender identity. Similarly, many states have introduced laws that forbid students from competing in sports outside of their sex assigned at birth. These changes follow the growing opposition against transgender athletes, especially transgender women who wish to compete as female athletes.

Opponents often argue that trans-inclusion would threaten fair competition for women in sports, although there hasn’t been definitive and consistent scientific evidence to support this claim (Jones et al., 2017). There have been no instances of numerous transgender athletes “dominating the competition” and “taking away” cisgender athletes’ chance of winning a medal. But many organizations, lawmakers, and lay spectators wouldn’t budge at this evidence; it makes one wonder if perhaps there is a different reason for their opposition.

In fact, a series of studies observed an interesting pattern in the opposition against trans-inclusive policies (Morgenroth et al., 2022). When asked about giving transgender women access to women-only spaces (bathrooms, lockers, women’s shelters, etc.), opponents of trans-inclusive policies that would allow this would say they worry about women becoming exposed to male violence. However, seven correlational and experimental studies involving thousands of participants in total revealed it is actually a negative bias against transgender people that strongly predicts opposition, not concerns about male violence. In other words, people opposed to allowing transgender women into women-only spaces not because they believed it would put women in danger, but because they had negative feelings toward trans people.

Could something similar be happening behind the opposition against transgender athletes? Our research aimed to find out what reasons people give for supporting or opposing trans-inclusive sports policies, and what is actually behind their position: concerns about fairness, or feelings toward transgender people. If people are accurate about why they support or oppose trans-inclusive policies, the reasons they state outwardly would match the actual predictors of policy support/opposition.

Here's what we found. Out of 710 cisgender adults living in the US, 150 people said they support sports policies that allow transgender athletes to freely compete in line with their gender identity, while 560 people said they oppose such policies. When asked why, supporters answered that how much they value fairness and their general feelings about transgender people were both important reasons in deciding their position, while opponents answered that fairness affected their decision much more than how they felt about transgender people.

But when we measured how much people valued fairness and how they felt toward transgender people, and then compared those measurements to how much they supported or opposed specific policies, it told a different story. First, for both supporters and opponents of trans-inclusive sports policies, negative feelings toward transgender people were negatively correlated with policy support—meaning that the more negatively biased toward trans people you are, the less likely you are to support trans-inclusive policies. Also, for both supporters and opposers, concerns about fairness were positively correlated with policy support; in other words, the more you value fairness, the more likely you are to support policies that allow transgender athletes to compete in line with their gender identity.

On top of that, when we compared these associations—that is, compared which reasons were more strongly related to supporting/opposing the policies—it turned out that for those who support trans-inclusive policies, concerns about fairness and feelings toward transgender people similarly predicted policy support. For opponents on the other hand, how they felt toward transgender people was a stronger reason that predicted their position. In other words, supporters were pretty much accurate in telling why they support trans-inclusive sports policies, as both reasons were indeed similarly important to their support. Opposers were the opposite of accurate, as contrary to what they stated, having negatively biased feelings toward transgender people was the more important reason for their opposition.

So, what can we learn from this study? It seems when it comes to policies regarding trans-inclusivity, the reasons people give for their opposition don’t match their actual underlying reasons. While current debate around transgender athletes and sports policies is heavily focused on the fairness of competition, our data suggests that people oppose allowing transgender athletes not because they are concerned about fairness for women, but because they are negatively biased against transgender people.

Perhaps for us to move forward as a society, we can address these negative biases rather than continue to fixate the entire discourse on fairness. It’s not that fairness is unimportant—it’s sports! Of course, we should talk about fairness. But maybe after acknowledging how much of the opposition is rooted in transphobia, how we think about fairness and who is included in our idea of fair sports might begin to look very different.

About the Author: 

Heejoo Jennifer Chung is a 2nd year PhD student in the Department of Psychological Sciences, studying social psychology. She is a member of the UNICORN Lab led by Dr. Thekla Morgenroth. For her first research as a UNICORN, Heejoo is studying how people react to transgender-inclusive policies in sports, as part of the lab's project to understand why people oppose individuals, groups, and policies that challenge the gender binary.