A New Era in Sports with the Emergence of Transgender-ism

During the recent Olympic games, there was a cloud of controversy especially in the contact sport of boxing where an athlete (identifies as a woman but was previously detected to be chromosomally a man) defeated a woman athlete in under a minute by tap-out. Such instances are becoming common especially when different federations have different regulatory requirements for gender classification. This raises the concern of athlete safety, potential insurance coverage issues and potential abuse for future events. Doping and hormonal manipulation aside, are the women athletes competing with the transgender group (men who identify as women) at an equal competing level? Perhaps the way forward is by either maintaining sporting events for same-sex and transgender athletes (men who identify as women), having separate categories for transgender athletes or to even consider having events without gender categories (to promote inclusivity and equality). After all, we already have literature showing that suppressed testosterone levels (in a man who identifies as a woman) still provides an athlete with an unfair advantage over a woman. A consensus must be reached before such instances occur in team-based events for competition.