Alberta’s Ban on Trans Women Athletes: On Where The Threat Actually Lives

by Mikaela Brewer for The 44 North

Senior Editor

Mikaela Brewer (left) playing college basketball

"It’s not trans women who are the threat—it’s a surveillance-based, misogynist patriarchy. It’s never been about who’s playing the sport—it’s about which men have policing and decision-making power across women’s sports. It’s not about fairness at all. It’s about maintaining a culture of control under the guise of fairness."

As a white, cisgender woman, I had biological advantages playing basketball. But no one threatened my right or ability to exist because of it. I was a bit of a nuisance on the basketball court—in the best way. I’m ~5’10” (probably closer to 6’0” in basketball shoes), but my wingspan is over 6’2,” and I could borrow my 6’4” teammates’ jeans. On defence, I deflected many passes that the other team’s point guard didn’t think I could reach or get to in time. But I did. With such long arms and legs—a “biological advantage”—why didn’t I have to prove my gender to play for Stanford University or Team Canada? Because what’s happening to trans women in sports right now isn’t about biological advantage. It’s about policing women’s bodies. And it always has been.

For our July/August 2024 issue at The 44 North, I wrote a short story titled Hope Tracks, a fictional narrative about two high school students, siblings Lena and Sam, as they prepare for track season. One morning, before their first run of the upcoming school year, the two confront one another in their family kitchen—one sibling is a trans woman, and the other’s curiosity isn’t neutral. The story explores mental health, community, activism, friendships, misinformation, family, high school, and racism. I’d love for you to read it, especially now as trans people—particularly women and non-binary athletes—are violently and invasively attacked and investigated. It’s a vehement myth that this isn’t happening in Canada. It very much is.

Via CBC News: Alberta’s new ban on trans women athletes (12+) will not only require schools, universities and sports clubs to exclude and bar trans women and girls from competing, but report and investigate—via the athlete’s sex on their birth records—eligibility complaints to the government, including the results of the challenge. This ban impacts nearly 90 sports organizations in Alberta. It requires an athlete’s parent or guardian to “confirm in writing that the athlete qualifies under the law to play in a female league.” Boards will be encouraged and empowered to impose “reasonable sanctions” against any “bad faith” challenges launched.

Alberta’s United Conservative Party government says the ban seeks to safeguard the “integrity of female athletic competitions by ensuring women and girls have the opportunity to compete in "biological female-only divisions.”” Further, Linda Blade, a coach and former president of Athletics Alberta, said the ban is “not anti trans, it's not anti-anything. It's pro-women.” Please read more here: Birth records will be key in Alberta's new ban on female trans athletes, regulations show (CBC News), Alberta’s transgender ban in sports exempts visiting out-of-province athletes (Global News), Liberal government 'monitoring' Alberta law banning trans athletes from female sports (National Post). 

These regulations are immeasurably harmful and violent. And they’re not at all “pro women.” In Hope Tracks, Lena shares a quote from Schuyler Bailar, the first trans D1 NCAA men’s athlete: 

“People often forget that in order to exclude trans women, you must police all bodies in the women’s category. Any girl or woman can be accused of being transgender. At what point is a girl “too good,” “too masculine,” or “too tall,” or “too strong,” or “too fast” to be accused of being trans? The attempt to exclude trans women is the legal enforcement of the policing of all women’s bodies. And this disproportionately affects those of colour, especially Black women and girls who already suffer anti-Blackness and misogyny (misogynoir) and are often portrayed as not woman enough due to white supremacy. Ask yourself: Who is ‘woman enough?’ The inclusion of trans girls in girls’ sports does not threaten girls’ sports. Instead, the exclusion of trans girls leads to the destruction of girls’ sport through the enforcement of misogynistic and racist standards of girls’ bodies.”

Further, Violet Stanza’s video excellently and thoughtfully notes that research on “biological advantage,” often applied to sports, comes from the military. Via military data, after two years on HRT, trans women raced the mile similarly to cis women, and after four years, matched max sit-ups in a minute. 

Importantly, Stanza asked another question that haunts me: will we only accept trans women in sports if they’re not competitive—if they’re ‘bad?’ Is this what we should be telling trans women—and because this fight isn’t about who is more ‘pro-women’—all women? That they should only ever aspire to mediocrity so as not to be ‘transvestigated?’ 

There will always be biological advantages in sports—height, weight, wingspan, shoulder width, etc. And truthfully, the real threat is embedded in the anti-trans rhetoric and catch phrase: “Keep men out of women’s sports.” It’s not trans women who are the threat—it’s a surveillance-based, misogynist patriarchy. It’s never been about who’s playing the sport—it’s about which men have policing and decision-making power across women’s sports. It’s not about fairness at all. It’s about maintaining a culture of control under the guise of fairness.

So let me answer Schuyler’s question: when did I feel afraid or threatened? It was when my sexuality was pried into, my food intake monitored, or my body fat and weight weaponized. It was when I was reminded of my ‘selfish’ choice to clash being an athlete with being an ‘acceptable’ woman, ‘jeopardizing’ motherhood. It’s each of these wrapping around our throats, choking what women can do and who women can be into such a thin straw that it becomes a feeding tube. We may have forgotten it’s there because we can’t taste it, thinking we’re safe and protected. We’re not. And especially for those of us who are current or former athletes, we have to speak up.