Do trans women have a biological advantage at swimming? At intelligence? At being well-liked by their peers and winning popularity contests? As far as bigots are concerned, cis women are helpless and unskilled victims who can never, ever compete against us, lest they lose.
Granted, I don’t agree with that sentiment—I think a cis woman could easily beat me at chess, as I am not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to strategy games. And I think a cis woman who fished professionally could beat me fair and square if I were, say, a professional fisher. After nearly a decade on estrogen, nothing about my body innately makes me superior to cisgender women in angling.
Nonetheless, one women’s fishing team was so up in arms over its own transgender teammate that three of its members left in June, according to the Daily Mail. Now, Piers Morgan is patting those women on the back, and he’s giving credence to the claim that trans women somehow have a biological advantage in fishing.
Perhaps we have some superior ability to identify fish?
‘The whole of the women’s team could be transgender? It’s ridiculous!’
Over on his show Piers Morgan Uncensored, the titular pundit gave airtime to two cis women who are former members of the England Ladies Shore Fishing Team. Both women left the team because they believed trans women should not be allowed to participate. The segment particularly targeted Becky Lee Brirtwhistle Hodges, a transgender member of the English team who Morgan went out of his way to covertly misgender as “a former male Rugby player.”
“There’s a kind of belief from the governing bodies here that being a biological male would have no impact on the sport of angling,” Morgan said. “Is that right?”
“That’s what they’re saying, and it’s not true,” Captain Heather Lindfield, who departed from the English team this summer, told Morgan. “We’re battling the elements of the weather, there’s weed, there’s the tide — even walking in the water, getting knocked over.”
Morgan spared no energy in disparaging trans players during his segment, referring to trans women as “biological males” who are “beginning to dominate, and in my views, start to ruin” women’s sports. Fisher Wendy Metcalfe, who also walked from the team in 2018 over Hodges, gave her blessing to the disparaging remarks. During the segment, she fearmongered over the idea that trans women might one day surpass cis women in competitive fishing.
“Can you imagine, Piers, what it would be like in the future?” she said. “The whole of the women’s team could be transgender? It’s ridiculous!”
What do the professionals say?
There is no evidence that trans women who have undergone hormone replacement therapy have a statistically significant biological advantage at competitive sports over cis women — and professionals across sports have spoken out against bans on trans athletes. Earlier this year, one academic review even concluded that exposure to testosterone during puberty did not result in any competitive advantage for trans women in sports.
Nonetheless, transphobes have painted trans women as testosterone-poisoned monsters that are so muscular, powerful, intelligent, and physically perfect that we are simply superior to cis women athletes in every way. These claims are made despite the fact that plenty of trans women in sports just aren’t dominating in their field.
At the moment, the Angling Trust allows trans women to compete in women’s angling. After the England Ladies Shore Fishing Team lost three members over Hodges’ slot on the team, the Angling Trust introduced a temporary policy advocating for the inclusion of trans women in women’s angling.
“All sporting governing bodies within the Sport England family have been obliged to review their diversity and equality policies with regards to who is eligible to fish in the female category of international teams and to strike a balance between safety, fairness, and inclusion,” Angling Trust’s Jamie Cook said in a June press release. “This review is yet to be completed, and until it is our policy remains the same as the international angling governing bodies — CIPS and FIPS — and recognizes the gender of an angler based upon their passport or gender recognition certificate direct from a doctor if no passport is held.”
“Team selection is currently based on this policy but our ongoing consultation with women’s team members and managers, which will be a key part of our review, could see this change,” Cook also said.
At the time, the Trust said it was “preparing a survey of the views of anglers from across key parts of our community with a particular focus on the views of female anglers” across the sport, both nationally and internationally, in order to come up with a final policy.
Despite the complaints of a bunch of cis women, the science doesn’t defend their claims, and bodies like the Angling Trust are willing to let trans women compete. Then again, when it comes to Morgan and his buddies, all this was never really about fairness in women’s sports. It was always about targeting trans women, and deciding whether we have a right to a spot in public life.
(featured image: pkawasaki/Getty)
