For most athletes, the road to the Olympics–or any elite competition, really–is grueling but ultimately straightforward: You train, you compete, you win. Then you train some more, keep competing, keep winning, and if you’re good enough and lucky enough, you find yourself at the highest level of your sport, vying for gold medals against the best of the best.
But now, some transgender athletes—in particular trans women who have clawed their way to the upper echelon of their sport—are locked out of the competition. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, many sports now require trans women to have transitioned before puberty. At a time when gender affirming care is increasingly difficult to access, some elite competitions have flat-out banned trans women from participating. So while non-binary athletes like middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz and soccer star Quinn are crushing it in Paris, it’s been impossible for most trans women to qualify. (Though the absence of trans women in Olympic competition has not stopped people from fixating on cis boxer Imane Khelif with bigotry and gender panic.)
For a slew of promising athletes, these rules mean game over. In 2022, swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender woman to win a NCAA swimming championship. Soon after, World Aquatics banned women who’d transitioned after puberty from competing. (Thomas had zero chance of qualifying for this year’s Games). Sprinter CeCe Telfer was also shut out of the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials by World Athletics, a decision she called “blatant discrimination.”
Although sports governing bodies seem more determined than ever to exclude trans women and the debate continues to rage over their participation, these dedicated athletes are toughing it out and competing at whatever level they can. Cosmopolitan spoke with four trans athletes across different sports and countries about the increasing hostility, the tightening rules, and how the fight for inclusion has affected their training and daily lives.
Alexia Cerenys, Rugby Union Player, France
Rugby is special. It’s not like swimming or cycling where the national championships have no impact on international competitions. (So World Rugby has no power to ban trans women from a federation at a national level, but being included in international competitions depends on your national and regional performance.)
My integration into my first women’s team went very well. After two years in the second division, I was recruited into a team in the first division, LONS Section Paloise, and it has been the best six years of my life as an athlete. But while LONS rugby has been open to trans athletes for more than 20 years, no trans athlete has dominated competitions—ever. Even if you grow up with male puberty, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) causes a total upheaval of your performance. Any advantages you may have had before are eliminated. There are more disadvantages after HRT than remaining advantages acquired during first puberty.
“No trans athlete has dominated competitions—ever.”
We need the general public to understand transfeminine athletes and how hormones affect our bodies. If we don’t explain this, people will think, Why is a man competing with women? But we’re talking about international competitions featuring high-level athletes with extraordinary physical abilities. They’re not just ordinary citizens—they train for hours on end and excel in their fields. They have really specific skills. It’s a divisive subject, but it deserves to be explained because basic transphobia can quickly turn into sexism. Just look at the way Imane Khelif, Katie Ledecky, Caster Seymenya and many others have been attacked for their lack of femininity and their incredible performances.
Living as a trans athlete with the ever-present threat of being banned from my sport has been a heavy burden. In World Rugby’s case, the question was brought up in 2020. They were thinking about banning trans women from the sport. I thought my dreams were going to be shattered. But in the end, they just recommended national and regional organizations not select trans athletes for international competitions. It was reassuring and I was relieved to be able to continue the sport I love so much at the regional and national level.
Chelsea Wolfe, BMX Freestylist, United States
I was the alternate at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and I was supposed to be the alternate athlete in the BMX Freestyle in Paris—until Union Cycliste Internationale banned transgender women from participating in international competitions. The rules changed overnight less than a week before one of the biggest events of the year. And to me, it felt intentional and cruel.
When the ban went into effect, my career was destroyed. There are a lot of opportunities that come along with being an Olympian. You’re more marketable to the general public. Those opportunities have been taken from a community that already faces employment discrimination and income disparity at a much higher rate than many other groups.
Competing internationally as a BMX Freestyle rider was my dream, but it was also my home. It has been unimaginably hard. At first, I was just just fighting for survival, literally just trying to find any kind of semblance of a will to live anymore. My reason for living had just been stolen from me. So I was just trying to reestablish what life is like without what my life had always been.
“Competing was my dream, but it was also my home.”
Athlete suicide rates are growing. We’re passionate, driven people and in competing, we experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. Trans people also face high rates of suicide and mental health challenges. I can’t stress enough that my entire life since this ban took effect has been getting myself to a point where I’m not at risk for self-harm. If it weren’t for the strength and resiliency of our community, the UCI—and all these other federations, including International Olympic Committee (IOC)—would have had a string of suicides on their hands.
Folks that want to ban trans athletes say that we are taking opportunities from cisgender girls—but we are also girls. It is very telling that officials are concerned about cisgender girls not having opportunities to compete but are totally fine with taking that away from transgender girls.
Not only was I denied the opportunity to win, I didn’t even get an opportunity to try. All we’re asking for is a chance to get to the starting line. We’re not asking for a guaranteed win. Instead, that’s what it feels like proponents of these bans are demanding. They want a cisgender person to win these competitions.
Valentina Petrillo, Paralympic Sprinter, Italy
Last year in Paris, I won two bronze medals at the Paralympic World Championships in the 400m and 200m and I reaffirmed myself as the Italian champion in the 100-200-400m both indoors and outdoors in the visually impaired category. My races in Paris will be on September 2 and 6.
I’m lucky. I can talk about myself and I get to do what I like, which is running. For me, sport is a means of expression. But the hardest battle was still coming out to the whole world.
When I started hormone therapy in 2019, attitudes toward the LGBTQIA+ community in sports were much more positive than they are today. In 2020, I managed to compete for the first time as a female despite having documents that were not fully updated. That was the high point of the inclusion for transgender people in sports.
From that moment, the situation got worse. There were times I faced transphobia in sports. In Master competitions, for athletes over 35, I was banned from entering the women’s bathroom. It happened so many times that last year, I decided not to participate in this type of competition anymore.
When the World Para Athletics Federation did not follow the guidelines of World Athletics for transgender athletes and require them to have transitioned before puberty, I felt reassured. Sports are important for all people and being unable to participate is discrimination with no scientific basis. Trans people are athletes. We are professionals.
“Trans people are athletes. We are professionals.”
It’s not easy to focus exclusively on the sport and block out any outside pressure. Last year, I was close to leaving track and field but with help from my mental coach we worked to restore my self-esteem. I learned concentration techniques to keep my attention high and not get distracted by the outside noise. What works best for me is to hum a song. It helps me focus if I ignore outside pressure and just concentrate on my performance.
Kristen Fiore, Climber, United States
There are two ways to make it really big in climbing: indoors and outdoors. Olympic sport climbing is indoors, and I hope the growing popularity helps climbing become more accessible. I want everyone to fall in love with climbing the way I fell in love with it. But a lot of my climbing, both as a guide and an athlete, takes place outdoors. Outdoors climbing is also a high-level sport, but there are no judges. There are no international governing bodies, but you can still have big accomplishments and sponsors and media attention. So, in the outdoors, if our community holds us and our community supports us, we don’t really have to worry about what the IOC has to say about it. That makes climbing different from other Olympic sports.
Many trans women start climbing as a coping mechanism for dysphoria. Then, as we become less dysphoric, our love for ourselves and our bodies grows and we learn how to do this sport in a way that helps us have a healthy relationship with our bodies.
But transphobia and my internal struggles still impact my training. Sports are one of the last remaining places where transphobia hides out. Why are people comfortable with trans people using bathrooms according to their gender identity but not comfortable with trans women competing in sports? I coach climbing and I do it as an athlete. Anyone who competes at a high level or who coaches athletes will tell you it’s impossible to overstate the mental and emotional side of competition. Competition matters to us because it tells us how good we are at that moment. It’s frustrating to have to fight tooth and nail just to show up.
“The work we’re doing is for people who dream of chalking up their hands under the Olympic rings.”
If you don’t see trans women as women, there isn’t much I can say that will get you to believe we belong in women’s sports. I’ve often wondered if trans climbers should even bother fighting for inclusion. If I wasn’t working alongside incredible activists, I’d probably say no. Most days, I would rather be on a walk in the woods than have someone approach me on the street and say, “You’re so brave.” But there are trans girls out there who are going to see me as a high-level athlete in this sport and be inspired. I want that for them. If climbing in the Olympics inspires that next kid to get into it, then of course I’m gonna smile about that. The work we’re doing to be included in women’s competitions is for people who dream of chalking up their hands under the Olympic rings.
Sydney Bauer
Sydney Bauer is a transgender journalist who covers sports, politics and major events through the lens of identity and gender.
