A picture speaks a thousand words

One of these people thinks he’s a woman. The other is a woman. Can you spot the difference? Am I policing women’s bodies?

The one who thinks he’s a woman (actually, he’s told reporters he’s a man, but insists on running in the female category because it makes him happy), top, advanced to the semi-finals of the T12 Women’s 200 meters at the Paris Paralympics. This meant 20-year-old Nagore Folgado Garcia, bottom, was bumped out of the competition. Her dreams of competing for a medal at the highest level are over.

Folgardo Garcia is not the only woman who has lost her place in the women’s category to this one man—many Italian female athletes were not selected for the Italian team, and three women were displaced in the heats of the 400 meter race already completed at the Paralympics. National competitions? World Championships? European Championships? There are limited spots at these competitions, limited lanes on the track. It is pie.

This is what “inclusion” looks like. Including a man—regardless of his identity—in the women’s category excludes women. One man excludes many women. The female category was created as an inclusion measure for women, designed to exclude men and male advantage. The whole purpose of women’s sports was to prevent what is happening right now at the Paralympics. Inclusion negates the purpose of women’s sports.

A man is being allowed to compete in women’s sports at the highest level because World Para Athletics’ policy is that anyone who is legally female can compete in the female category. In Italy, as in many countries, it is quite easy to change an M to an F on a legal document. This is a change of a letter, not a change of sex.

If you’d like to encourage World Para Athletics to protect the female category, as World Athletics has done, email the head of the organization, Paul Fitzgerald, at paul.fitzgerald@worldparaathletics.org. The people above are demonstrating brilliantly in real time why WPA needs to keep the women’s category a meaningful sex-based category.