Alison Wade Thinks Inclusion and Acceptance of Male-Bodied Athletes in Women's Sports Is More Important Than Fairness

Fellow Substack writer Alison Wade writes the Fast Women newsletter about women’s running. The entire focus of her career has been on the unique achievements of female athletes—people who are, even in the womb, physiologically different from males, who will go through female puberty, deal with periods, experience life as a woman which might mean lower pay than men, might mean risk of physical harm from men, which might mean pressure to conform to feminine social norms, might carry and raise children, and go through menopause. Wade has written about how all these uniquely female factors affect women’s running.

So, when I received the Fast Women newsletter this morning, I was completely—disappointed does not begin to describe—speechless, maybe, at Wade’s take on the Oregon State High School Track Championship that happened this past Saturday. In case you missed it (since, bizarrely, neither The Oregonian nor the Portland Tribune reported on this historic occasion), a trans-identified male, sophomore Aayden Gallagher, won the Girls’ 200-Meter title and was a close second in the Girls’ 400-Meter race. In another dubious first for Hayward Field, Gallagher was booed by the crowd as he crossed the line and during the award ceremonies. Aster Jones (top photo) was the first girl across the line in the 200, but had to settle for second place on the podium.

Why a woman, like Alison Wade, who has devoted her career to women’s sports would contend that men can be women if they say so, and that women need to accept that as truth, feels like the most egregious betrayal. And interestingly for a column about women, Wade does not mention the rights or feelings of girls at all, ever. You can support the rights of girls and women to safe and fair sport or you can support the rights of men and boys to self-ID into women’s sports. You cannot support both—they’re incompatible. As we see below, Wade has made her choice.

My heart breaks for trans girls who are good at sports

Right off the bat, Wade’s heartbreak is reserved for a boy who identifies as a girl rather than all the girls throughout the season who suffered unfairness in their own category because of this boy. Why would her heart break for Gallagher? He got virtually everything he wanted, every right he had coming to him, and more. He got to compete in alignment with his gender identity, benefited from all the camaraderie of being on a girls’ team, and after two months of running in his newly adopted sport, won a state championship and a silver medal, and posted the 8th fastest girls’ 400-meter time in the country. Goodness, how many girls would like to suffer like that!

And why doesn’t Wade’s heart break for all the trans boys who are good at sports? Wait, were there any girls who identify as boys competing in the boys’ category? Or at the state championship level of any sport? Why aren’t we ever talking about unfairness for boys when “trans boys” compete in the boys’ category?

I wasn’t planning to write about the Oregon state meet until I saw this DyeStat editorial on Sunday morning. You know it’s not going to be a progressive take when they use the word transgendered instead of transgender in the headline and then later refer to a trans girl as a “boy.” The quotes are theirs. The writer, Doug Binder, claims to be sympathetic and says he has no issue respecting her identity and pronouns while failing to do so. I am disappointed in DyeStat for publishing it.

I encourage you to read the Dyestat editorial. Transgendered or transgender, makes no difference. As I said above, whenever Wade says transgender, she means boys’ and men’s rights to self-identify into women’s sports, not girls’ and women’s rights to self-identify into men’s sports because everyone knows they bring a sports disadvantage with them. When Wade talks about transgender, she’s talking about men and boys. The OSAA’s policy of allowing competition according to one’s gender identity prioritizes the feelings and beliefs of boys, at the expense of safety and fairness for girls. Women’s right to their own sex-based category, that we’ve worked for for more than 50 years, is stripped away. How is that progressive?

The Dyestat writer did not need to put quotation marks around the word boy. Gallagher is a boy. His body has developed in male pattern that confers documented physiological advantages over girls in sports, regardless of gender identity or hormonal intervention. That’s why it’s important to speak correctly about his sex. It’s a bit rich that Wade criticizes the Dyestat writer about respecting Gallagher’s identity and pronouns but fails to see that Gallagher, his enablers, and anti-woman activists like Wade herself disrespect reality, girls’ truth, that someone who merely thinks of himself as a girl is claiming the rights of people who are girls.

What I know from the article: Aayden Gallagher, a trans sophomore from Portland, won the 200m at the Oregon state meet in 23.82 seconds and finished second in the 400m in 52.98 seconds. While she was winning the 200m and accepting her award, the Hayward Field crowd booed her, loudly. Binder writes that he does not know if Gallagher has begun any gender-affirming hormone therapy, which is none of our business, and the OSAA does not require it. Gallagher was following the rules. Binder argues that the rules should change.

No one wants to boo a high schooler. This is an exhibition of abject failure of leadership and the last resort of people who have not been listened to. These are people who are not okay with competition based on gender identity. Poll after poll shows people are in favor of sex-based sports teams. At school board meetings, public meetings, in the comment section of newspapers, and the few times female athletes have anonymously been surveyed, people have spoken up for sex-based sports. Coaches and athletes being shamed and threatened into silence about males in female sports should not be taken for agreement (and in fact, makes a pretty good case for the fact that even the administrators who are putting these policies in place know it’s wrong). But legislators and school administrators bowed to very vocal ideologues and put policies in place that ignore biology, reality, and the rights of women and girls. Those policies played out for all to see this past weekend, and it was not pretty. As I mentioned in my last post, Gallagher, cruelly, was set up by his parents, coaches, administrators and legislators as cannon fodder.

Wade says it’s none of our business if Gallagher is on gender-affirming hormones. By mentioning hormone therapy, she tacitly admits Gallagher is male. Girls do not need gender-affirming hormones to compete in the girls’ category. Also, it’s none of our business what exogenous drugs an athlete puts in his body? I beg to differ. Wade writes about women who have been banned for taking testosterone, but a trans-identified male who may have five times the level of testosterone as females, and a lifetime of physiological impacts because of it, is fine? Making trans athletes a special class of people who cannot be questioned is wrong, and she knows it.

You can read the article if you want to hear his full argument for why trans girls shouldn’t be allowed to participate in high school sports. He’s hardly alone in his feelings. All of his arguments are popular among the “save women’s sports” crowd. (If women’s sports need saving, it’s not trans women that are the threat.) And girls’ and women’s sports have quickly become one of the top places to push an anti-trans agenda.

Certainly, women’s sports have many problems—with pay, facilities, publicity, safety. But at the heart of all those problems is the idea of women as lesser men, that they’re not worthy of their own spaces, fairness, and opportunity. Men self-identifying into women’s sports is one of those problems because it denies that women have specific sex-based rights not available to men. That they deserve women’s sports simply because they are women and not men. As far as “trans women” not being a threat to women’s sports, Wade should ask some women in USA Cycling, or powerlifting, or soccer, or surfing, or high school cross country.

Hmmm, why has “women and girls’ sports quickly become one of the top places to push an anti-trans agenda?” Why isn’t it men’s and boys’ sports? Or men’s locker rooms? Or men’s domestic violence shelters and prisons? Why aren’t people shouting about women who identify as men shouldering into those spaces? Could it be that, as women’s advocates have been saying forever, it’s not about trans people it’s about men in women’s sports. This puts me in mind of elite runner Nikki Hiltz, who first claimed to be nonbinary and then transgender. Wade writes about Hiltz frequently because, even though Hiltz identifies as male, she has always competed in the women’s category. And Hiltz has commented about the love and acceptance she gets from other athletes, from the media, and fans. No hate. No trans hate at all. Because she’s competing fairly in her own sex category. (Of course everybody in the world, except for Hiltz and Wade, know that Hiltz would have had no running career past junior high if she’d competed on the boys’ team). So correction—there is no anti-trans agenda. There are some, including World Athletics, who are pro-woman, and therefore want to restrict women’s sports to biological females. Otherwise there is no sense in having women’s sports.

But high school sports are about more than winning. They’re also about the relationships, life lessons, self confidence, belonging, and so much more. And trans kids have a right to all of those things, too. As they move forward in their athletic careers, doors are going to be slammed in their faces. I applaud the state high school associations that give trans girls the opportunity to compete. 

Wade is being willfully disingenuous. Trans-identified kids are not banned from sports, and those life lessons are freely available to them, on the team that matches their sex. (See Nikki Hiltz, above).

Binder writes, “Does one lane in the finals for a trans athlete in 2024 become three lanes some time in the future?” This is a common argument, but thus far, there are very few trans kids making it to state finals in their sports. And if that should change, I think the sport can consider ways to continue to be inclusive without taking opportunities away from cisgender girls.

According to Wade, Aster Jones did not lose an opportunity to win a state title. That didn’t count. She didn’t count. And the girls farther down the line in 3rd through 8th place didn’t miss out on anything, nor those that didn’t make it to the state meet. Because it was just one boy. She’s talking as if lost opportunities for girls might happen in the future, but they already have. They just did. At what point does Wade think girls will have lost opportunities?

I’m not arguing that allowing trans girls to compete makes for a level playing field; there’s no such thing. I’m arguing that some things, like inclusion and acceptance, should be more important. And track & field has a good opportunity to be a safe space for trans teens. Right now, it is not. Binder reported that Gallagher needed security at track practice, her hotel, and Hayward Field. Google Gallagher’s name and you’ll see a lot of adults spewing hate toward a teenager. 

I think Wade is admitting that it’s unfair for trans-identified boys to compete in girls’ sports, but that there is no such thing as fairness anyway, so what the heck—let them in because they want to. For someone who writes about sports, this is a strange take. Why have rules? Why have any categories—age, weight, para ability? Why have drug testing? And inclusion and acceptance (of what?) are more important than fairness? I’m going to go out on a limb and say Wade is dead wrong. Without fairness, you don’t have sports. Categories provide inclusion for everyone, and opportunity, but without fairness, you have nothing. Boys’ sports was designed to provide Gallagher fairness and inclusion. It’s on boys to accept all boys—gay boys, gender nonconforming boys, nonbinary boys.

Sports should be safe spaces for all athletes—that means girls. Having a boy, regardless of his gender identity, in the girls’ locker room is the definition of sexual harassment. It’s unsafe. This policy prioritizes the feelings of a boy at the expense of girls. Do girls need to shut up and accept this? Is that the acceptance Wade is talking about?

Gallagher is likely getting some additional life lessons out of her high school running experience, like just how hateful some people can be and, hopefully, how to have thick skin. It would be tough for anyone of any age to handle. And all of the athletes at the state meet who had coaches who were quietly muttering about the unfairness of it all, or parents who booed Gallagher from the stands, learned various things as well, like how to echo that nastiness, or that they don’t have as much respect for the adults in their lives as they thought. I hope there were also some coaches and parents there talking about the importance of inclusion and acceptance, and the fact that there’s room for all of us.

What the holy heck!? Wade’s banging on about acceptance is very specifically about girls accepting unfairness, girls accepting that their feelings don’t matter, girls accepting that a trans-identified male is female because he said so, girls accepting that they have no rights as a girl because anyone can be a girl. This is so horrifically misogynistic I’m bleeding from the ears. How about boys learn to accept? Gallagher is male; he needs to be accepted and included on the boys’ team. As to this trans hate that Wade is shouting about, would anyone have given a rat’s ass about Gallagher if he had competed on the boys’ team? Pronouns, identity, life lessons, camaraderie—Gallagher could have the whole wonderful pie and all the acceptance in the world if he’d have competed in his sex category. It’s not trans hate—people do not want male-bodied people in women’s sports.

On Saturday, Josie Donelson, the 400m winner, and Gallagher became the first two girls in state history to break 53 seconds, with Donelson running 52.83 and Gallagher running 52.98. Perhaps Donelson would have run just as fast without Gallagher, but I imagine Gallagher’s presence helped.

Really? The only mention of a girl is that the trans-identified boy was responsible for her win? Good thing there was a boy in the race. Or perhaps this could have been a girls’ race, and another talented girl would have pushed Donelson to that blazing time, and everyone could have celebrated the amazing things that girls have accomplished. Just a thought.

Shame on the Hayward fans for harassing a teenager who was following the rules and just wanted to participate in her sport. And on every media outlet who will now drag Gallagher’s name through the mud and use this case to promote an anti-trans agenda. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a perfect solution to dividing sports by gender. And the debate always gets more heated when trans girls are good at their sport. But the world is already such a hateful place for most trans people, and I’d like to see the sport become a safe haven, rather than another vehicle for spewing intolerance.

Threatening, silencing, gaslighting, and shaming people into accepting boys in girls’ sports is not progressive, nor is it likely to result in trans love or acceptance. There will never be a solution to dividing sports by gender, but not long ago there was a damn good method of dividing sports by sex. It’s fair, it’s inclusive, it promotes acceptance of gender nonconforming kids (looking at you, boys), and provides a space for girls to be respected and celebrated as the unique and amazing athletes they are.