The Olympics has a long history of LGBTQA+ discrimination and sexism. The Olympic games were first held in 1896, in Athens, Greece. Women were first permitted to compete in the 1900 Paris games, in lawn tennis and golf, but athletics and gymnastics were not added until 1928. Until this summer, transgender people were not allowed to compete in the Olympics without previously having gender reassignment surgery.
The issue of LGBTQA+ discrimination was brought up in the 2016 summer Olympics with the case of Caster Semenya. Semenya, a runner from South Africa, was born with no ovaries and internal testicles, a medical anomaly called hyperandrogenism. Because of her anomaly, people argued that it was unfair for her to compete as a woman.
My initial thought about Semenya’s case was: Who cares? If Semenya identifies as a woman, she should be able to compete as a woman in the Olympics. Then I wondered – why do we even have gendered Olympics? Yes, it is true that males and females differ biologically, and that these biological differences affect their athletic ability to some extent. However, are these differences enough to mean that it would be unfair to females if there were no separate categories for men and women?
I took the liberty of looking up the women’s and men’s 800-meter times; Caster Semenya won the women’s 800 meter race with a time of 1:55.28, while David Rudisha of Kenya won the men’s with 1:42.15. Clearly, men are faster than women, including Caster Semenya. So, is it really unfair that she was able to compete with the women? I think not.
It is appalling that Semenya’s genitalia is even up for discussion. In what situation would someone question a cisgender person’s (those who identify with their assigned sex at birth) genitalia in order for them to compete in the Olympics? It is evident from this situation that cisgender people do not experience the discrimination and adversity as those who are transgender. This is wrong – transgender and gender divergent people are human too and should be treated with the same respect as any other human.
Branching off that radical concept, on one hand people who are transgender and gender divergent should be able to compete in whichever category of Olympics they feel comfortable in. On the other hand, we should still have gendered Olympics, because otherwise it would be unfair towards women. The Olympics should still be gendered, but people who are transgender and gender divergent should be able to choose whether they compete in men’s or women’s categories. The International Olympic Committee took a step forward by establishing a new law allowing transgender people to compete without surgery. If a transgender woman who had not had gender reassignment surgery wanted to compete in a women’s category, she will be allowed to.
Along with the problems surrounding LGBTQA+ people in the Olympics, we also see sexism in today’s Olympics as well. One notable occurrence of sexism in the Olympics was in regards to Simone Biles, who won four gold and one bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics. During her routine on the uneven bars, an NBC commentator stated that he thought “she might go even higher than some of the men.” Another situation occurred for Katie Ledecky, a 19-year-old swimmer who broke the world record in the 400-meter freestyle. Headlines popped up all over about how she was the “female Michael Phelps.”
Even though there is still a lot of sexism in the Olympics, the 2016 games were the openly queerest in history, with 56 “out” (open about non-heterosexuality) athletes competing.
The Olympics have come a long way from their founding games in 1896. However, even though women and transgender people are now allowed to compete, we still have a long way to go in terms of how society treats them.