Women in sport, as in other areas of society, suffer discrimination. But if we talk about trans women, this segregation becomes much more patent, to the point that they want to “prohibit them from participating in sports competitions or accessing subsidies”, claiming that they must compete within their “biological category”.
The proposal is defended by Vox and has supported the PP in the City Council of Toledo recently during a Plenary of the Municipal, with the rejection of PSOE and IU-POD Vote, at the same time, in favor of the Law of Sexual Diversity and LGTBI Rights of Castilla-La Mancha.
They have not been the only ones. The Iberian Sports Group (ADI), an entity that groups most of LGTBI+ clubs in Spain and Portugal, has shown its total rejection of this proposal and demand that the laws are fulfilled. The idea of the conservative groups transferred in this motion would go against several laws: Law 4/2023, of February 28, for the real and effective equality of trans-, sports; Law 39/2022, of December 30, of sport-, of equal treatment and non-discrimination; Law 15/2022, of July 12, for equal treatment and non -discrimination. All of them have a clear objective that happens to guarantee the participation of any person in sport.
For ADI, PP and Vox in Toledo they use a speech that their counterparts already use at the national scope, but it is also an international issue such as Donald Trump in the United States. Your argument to discriminate transporters? In the words of Bárbara G. Vilariño, Vocal of Communication of ADI, “it is introduced by a paternalism, where Trump said he wants to prevent the Women CIS They hit them and add up. ”
These “erroneous” ideas, says Adi, have to do with a “generalized machismo” and with the Cispassing, A term of Anglo -Saxon origin that comes to define a trans person who is not ‘note’ that it is. Or what is the same, when trans people are required to join the binary gender structure – man or woman – leaving behind any other gender expression, and that derives in transphobia.
The cases of María José Martínez Patiño and Aura Pacheco
The local government in Toledo, composed of the coalition between PP and VOX, has no legal power to decide who competes or not in a sports evidence, but it does have capacity when deciding who allocates, and who does not, the public subsidies of the Toledo City Council, so ‘de facto’, their position could end up penalizing some athletes or clubs.
“It seems that we have very little memory,” says Vilariño, referring to the case of the Galician sprinter María José Martínez Patiñ intersex, And they considered that it was no longer a woman. ”
His expulsion from the Spanish Olympic team occurred in 1986, because according to the evaluation criteria “did not pass” the gender verification test in sports. Vilariño points out that “the athlete lost the subsidies he could opt for and after a lot of struggle and professional wear, he managed to compete again, but could not pay at the same level, due to the lack of support of these scholarships. He could not go to the 1992 Olympic Games for a tenth of a second. ”
Barbara G. Vilariño emphasizes that “when protecting and promoting women’s sport, not only must it be done thinking about elite athletes, but you have to take it to the amateur or federated field.”
In 2023 the Basketball Federation of Castilla-La Mancha refused to grant Aura Pacheco, a trans adolescent, the license to play as federated in the women’s category. It was last year 2024 when justice proved to “meet all the normative requirements for it.” Sports justice considered that “refusing to give the file to be able to play for being trans was discriminatory as there was no objective justification and scientific evidence.”
Vilariño adds that currently sports regulations have been “changing a little to the letter”, and points out that the International Olympic Committee (COI) considers today that “there is no scientific justification that validates that trans or intersex people are prohibited from participating in sport.” Therefore, the proposal of motion of PP and Vox in Toledo would have no validity.
The argument of ultra -right -wing parties is that “sports categorization for biological sex is essential to ensure fair competition”, as detail in the motion presented. However, points the Adi’s communication member, “we must differentiate elite sport, which according to the Superior Sports Council practices only 4% of the population, with amateur or federated sport.”
Bárbara G. Vilariño affects that “we must favor participation. We cannot apply regulations of elite athletes, which we remember is the sport of privilege, to adolescents or boys and girls who practice sports because they like and favor their physical activity. ”
If we took the example of Aura Pacheco, she only “wanted to play with her friends and companions to basketball, she did not intend at all to have an advantage over the other players for being trans.”
From the Iberian Sports Group they want to empower that anyone can practice the sport you like without feeling discriminated. Vilariño adds that according to a survey they conducted in 2023 since the ADI, “two out of three people said they felt LGTbifobia in sport and, in fact, this abandonment of sport occurs in 50% of cases during adolescence.”
There are media and federations that say that the cisgenero woman of sport is being erased, and this is not real. The participation of transportist women in sport is almost anecdotal at the statistical level
Trans women are discriminated against in multiple areas including sport and even “are welcome in sport whenever they do not win,” as Joanna Harper, an advisor of the IOC, said in an interview with Eldiario.es.
Bárbara G. Vilariño, points out that “the gaze always goes to the woman who stands out, be it cis or trans. However, with men this does not happen and there are trans men competing. ” Adi’s communication member points out that “when a woman stands out for her gender expression or for any other reason for the rule of what is considered a woman, she is questioned and we must scratch to see what we find. However, other supposed competitive advantages, such as Michael Phelps’s longer arms, which allowed him to have some advantage when swimming are not questioned ”
Vilariño also suggests that “there are media and federations that say that the cisgenero of sport is being erased, and this is not real. The participation of female transporters in sport is almost anecdotal at the statistical level. ”
One of the most popular cases and that put the issue of transporters in question was that of Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer who won gold in the 2024 Olympic Games. Quickly, the media and society assumed that it was a trans woman and, nevertheless, it was shown that she was an intersexual woman.
“It is totally unknown what intersexuality is. You have to do a lot of pedagogy about it, ”says Vilariño. Body diversity is a fact: there are higher, stronger, faster or lighter women, both CIS and trans. However, it abounds, “today there is no scientific argument that validates that testosterone is a superpower in sport and is something admitted by the International Olympic Committee.”
ADI has a presence in Spain and Portugal and through its Observatory against LGTBIFOBIA collect all kinds of complaints in sport. His communication member, Barbara G. Vilariño encourages anyone who suffers this type of discrimination to denounce. “As with the rest of the crimes, they are very few people who do it, and we encourage them to look for this support network.”
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