On December 12, 2022, the Professional Disc Golf Association (“PDGA”) released a statement about a ruling on the issue of transgender (“trans”) women playing competitive disc golf in the gender protected divisions (FA for amateur players, FPO for professional players). The ruling changed the requirements for a trans woman to be eligible to compete against cisgender (“cis”) women, but also completely banned them from the highest levels of competitive play unless they began transition before age 12. In the time since the ruling was announced, there has largely been silence from the majority of the competitive disc golf community, both from the players and from the PDGA. It’s high time we start discussing the ruling, so we’re putting together this series of articles, to discuss each aspect of the situation, and see whether or not the PDGA’s decision was the right one.
There’s a lot of ground to cover on this issue, so to make it easier to digest we’re going to break this up into a few sections.
Why was the ruling the PDGA made?
First, it’s important to know why the PDGA changed things. As has become the trend in the debate over the inclusion of trans athletes in sports, the status quo is fine – until the trans players win. In 2022 Natalie Ryan, a trans woman from Powhatan, Virgina, turned heads when she won the Discraft Great Lakes Open (DGLO). Later in the season, she also won the MVP Open. Both of these wins happened on live coverage of the events, which caused a stir in the disc golf community. It seems to have been the live coverage that was the reason the issue got any discussion, at all. Nova Politte, a trans woman from St. Joseph, Missouri, is a two-time FP50 (the professional women’s over 50 division) world champion, and while her wins generated some discussion online, the PDGA remained silent on the subject – despite her winning the world championship during the same year Natalie Ryan won her two events on the pro tour. The only difference, it would seem, is the potential for money to be lost by paid viewers of the live streams – FP50 receives zero coverage for streaming or broadcasts.
What does the ruling say?
In their statement about the ruling, the PDGA states, “…the position of the PDGA should be to evaluate fairness and inclusion”. In fact, in the conclusions of the ruling, they say, “The PDGA Global Board of Directors values fairness and inclusion…”. So, on the surface the ruling is about ensuring fairness for cisgender women competitors, while balancing that with a supposed desire for the sport to be inclusive of their trans players.
The ruling modifies the restrictions placed upon trans competitors (specifically trans women – those who would be competing in the women’s divisions). There are new restrictions on the testosterone levels trans women are allowed to have while still competing in the FA/FPO divisions, as well as restrictions barring nearly all trans women from competing in certain events.
Before the new ruling, the PDGA was adhering to the well researched IOC (International Olympic Committee) standards of requiring trans women to maintain a testosterone level of less than 10nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to being approved for play. This is higher than that of a cis woman, but close enough by the IOC’s analysis to be competing on even ground at the Olympics. The new rules require that we maintain a testosterone level of less than 2nmol/L (lower than the upper range for healthy cis women) for at least 24 months.
The requirement of a testosterone level lower than many of the cis women competing is odd in itself, but it is the restrictions on which events a trans woman may be eligible to compete in, are where things get even more strange. Trans women who are considered eligible to compete (by providing evidence of their testosterone levels) are not allowed to compete in every event. They are barred from competing in the Disc Golf Pro Tour (“DGPT”), Elite series events, and any tournament above A-Tier. All pro “Major” level tournaments are off-limits to nearly all trans women. Essentially, any tournament above the local level is required to exclude trans women from playing in the women’s divisions. The only exceptions to this rule are if the player transitioned before age 12, or Tanner stage 2 (the tanner stages are the stages of development of sex characteristics during puberty) – whichever is later. In theory, this ensures that the player has never been affected by testosterone – but the current state of legislation around the US exposes a serious flaw in the logic behind it. Many states have banned any gender affirming care for minors (people under the age of 18), with some going as far as to extend the age of that ban to 26. Several states are working to not only enact that ban, but also to define providing (or even seeking) that care as a criminal offense – one which can end up with parents and medical practitioners in prison, and allow the state to take transgender children away from supportive homes. In light of those bills, that will make it impossible for players from any of those states to comply with the PDGA’s requirements, even if they wanted to. These bills have been passed, in the works, or known for well longer than the PDGA’s deliberation on the subject. They would have known that the current political climate in the US, as well as the laws it has created, would make it impossible to adhere to the rules they were drafting – well before they wrote them. The only option for those players would be to uproot their family’s entire life, and move to a more progressive state, at great expense – just so they can play a handful of tournaments that there is no evidence they would have an advantage in (don’t worry, we’ll cover the science on that later in this article).
What does this ruling mean for trans players, in real terms?
How the ruling affects players depends on their status prior to the date it went into effect – and even aside from eligibility, there are ways in which all players will be affected – cis and trans alike.
For players like Natalie Ryan, the ruling does nothing short of taking away their entire career. Touring pros can only sustain their lifestyle by earning money at the events they travel to. All of the events that would allow a touring player to afford to stay on the road are Majors, Elite level, or DGPT events – the very events they have been banned from. They can play A-tiers, but the payouts at those events rarely make them worth traveling to, so essentially the ruling relegates them to playing only local events, and finding a day job to pay their bills. This not only limits their ability to win money at the events, but potentially puts their ability to live up to their obligations to sponsors at risk. Some sponsorships require attendance at a certain number of events, or certain tiers of events, in order to hold up the players end of the deal. These players could find themselves unable to fulfill their obligations to their sponsors.
Below the touring FPO level, trans players are also effectively banned from competing in the Amateur World Championships.
There are many ways the PDGA’s lack of preparedness, and clumsy handling of their new rules have affected players at all levels, though. Trans players who have undergone gender reassignment surgery have been asked to provide testosterone levels, and a statement from their doctors about their testosterone production – despite the fact that the organs that produce that hormone have been physically removed from their bodies. Players who are seeking to reclassify for play in the FPO/FA divisions found out the hard way that the PDGA didn’t have the forms available to comply with the new ruling until January 24th, 2023 – over a month after the new rules went into effect. Both of these things could’ve been avoided with some common sense from the PDGA.The reclassification rules also require a physician’s statement, in addition to 2 years of testosterone level results, to state when the player started on hormone therapy – information which serves no purpose, because the testosterone levels themselves are the sole important factor. It doesn’t matter if a trans woman has been on hormones for 2 years, or 20 – if she abides by the rules and her testosterone levels are within the acceptable limits, there’s no difference in her athletic performance. They knew well before publishing the ruling what the criteria would be. It would’ve taken 5 minutes of conversation to acknowledge that demanding players with no testicles provide their testosterone levels is futile, and it would’ve been trivial to have the forms ready for reclassifying players before the December 31, 2022 date that the new rules went into effect. Trans players missed out on tournaments because of the inaction and unpreparedness the PDGA board forced upon their rank and file staff. Myself, I missed out on registering for 5 different sanctioned events, solely because the form wasn’t available for me to comply with the rules before they filled up.
At the time of writing, it remains to be seen how the enforcement of the new rules will happen at events, but given the PDGA’s inaction on the forms for reclassification, one worries that things will be handled in a…less than ideal manner.
Aside from the basic issues of gaining approval for competition, we are already seeing the side effects of the PDGA’s ruling at the local level, and some unintended consequences at the elite level. At the local level, players, Tournament Directors (“TDs”), and league administrators are having to confront the fact that the PDGA declared that regardless of what level they enforce it at, they believe that trans women have an unfair advantage against cis women. This has generated animosity towards trans women at the local level, from both players and TDs, who want to make it known that trans women aren’t welcome – whether or not they are eligible for play. Even before the PDGA’s ruling, players were boycotting events that trans women attended, in an attempt to force them to play against men. With the PDGA’s ruling, this is only likely to get worse over time. Influencers in the disc golf scene, such as the Foundation disc golf team, and touring MPO player Brodie Smith, have been very vocal about their view that if the PDGA says that it’s unfair for trans women to compete at the elite level, it’s unfair for them to compete at the local level.
And the animosity isn’t focused solely on trans women. As has happened in more than a few sports where new regulations were enacted to discriminate against trans women, it’s seldom long before people are calling cis women into question – leveling accusations that they may actually be transgender. On January 28th, 2023, the DGPT tweeted about their long drive competition, which cis woman Ella Hansen won in the previous year with a throw of 552 feet. Almost immediately, the comments started pouring in with accusations that allege she’s a trans woman, because she doesn’t fit the conventional “feminine” aesthetic. In reality, Ella throws incredibly far because of a long history of competitive athletics, including a successful career in Ultimate Frisbee. Brodie Smith can attest to the fact that a background in Ultimate frisbee is a great way to jump start a successful disc golf career.
Trans women do have an advantage, don’t they?
In short, no.
Now, before you break your keyboard or throw your phone, let’s go over the facts. Throw Proud may advocate for the inclusion of trans women in disc sports, but never let it be said that we’re ignoring the truth just to push a woke agenda.
The PDGA cited two sources in their announcement regarding the new ruling. First, a study by “Hilton and Lundberg”, and second a quote from “The opinion of Shrier (2022) regarding the biological advantages afforded by men”. We’ll get to the study in a moment, but first I’d like to introduce you to Abigail Shrier, the source cited as an expert on the subject of transgender people.
Abigail Shrier is the author of the book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters”. She has a long history of speaking and writing misinformation regarding trans rights, and their effects in what she calls “a war on women”. GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has a very detailed list of her dishonesty here. Suffice it to say however, she’s a bigot. She has a vested interest in excluding and discriminating against transgender people, especially transgender women. This is not the sort of person you want to be citing as your expert, or whose opinion you want to be using to inform a regulatory decision, if (as the PDGA said) you value “fairness and inclusion”. Not if you’re being honest about those being your values…
What about that study, though? Surely a published study is more reliable than an ideological pundit…
As it turns out, that’s not true. (Sources: 1, 2, 3). The 3 links cited there cover the specifics in painstaking detail, but there’s an additional piece of information to bear in mind: the 2021 study the PDGA cited is the second publication of that work. It was initially published in 2020, but had to be retracted because the authors had an undisclosed conflict of interest. The correction posted to the article reads as follows:
“After publication of this article, concerns were raised regarding potential undeclared conflicts of interest. In light of this the authors have provided the following statement:
EH and TL have given talks and engaged in the mainstream media and academic press regarding the biology of sex and how they have concluded that this should impact sporting categories. All dissemination or engagement, irrespective of the medium, has been guided by their education, disciplinary training, and research findings. The authors assert that this does not constitute a conflict of interest. Rather, it is an essential part of their academic freedom and their obligation to engage, publicly, in such discussions.”
The authors say that doesn’t constitute a conflict of interest, but you don’t retract and post corrections to your study just because someone made a false claim about it, do you?
Now, since we’re not expecting you to pore over each of those links we provided before regarding the issues with the study, we’ll bring some of the more interesting details into this article for you.
Let’s start with the authors themselves.
The Twitter link in our sources details the backgrounds of both Dr. Emma Hilton, and Dr. Tommy Lundberg:
“The primary author, Dr. Emma Hilton, does not have a background of sports medicine, and none of her prior publication credits are on topic with sports performance, transgender health or any kind of exercise.
…
Co-author Dr. Tommy Lundberg does have a background in sports science. Unfamiliarity with trans women as a population: Use of terminology ‘Biological Males’, Use of cis-men population comparators”
So, if neither of them has any familiarity with the science of transgender people, what do they have to say about their own work? When someone pointed out that news headlines sensationalizing the topic based on Hilton & Lundberg’s study were premature–and totally not substantiated–Dr. Lundberg himself responded with the following words:
“Of course it is [unsubstantiated] since we did not study transgender athletes within women’s sports.”
Wait, what?
Let me get this straight (some people will laugh…). These authors don’t understand transgender people’s day to day lives, nor the science behind gender transition. They have a history of speaking out against transgender people, and published a study advocating for the exclusion of trans women from sports that didn’t even study transgender athletes? Who did they study?
As it turns out, they studied cisgender men – and they didn’t consider the differences in biology when comparing them to women.
For the quotes and information below, we’re using “Appendix A” of the CCES report linked as the first source in the list above (Source 1). It is, by far, the best write up on the validity of the studies on transgender athletes in sport to date. If you are the sort of person to read through the entirety of something like that, it is highly recommended. If not, we’re going to pull just some of the more important parts from it, related to the Hilton and Lundberg study.
The CCES report details one of the biggest flaws in Hilton and Lundberg’s research methodology, right off the bat:
“Hilton & Lundberg do not appropriately review the available literature and draw false comparisons between men and women athletes. The assumptions employed and conclusion posed by the authors is therefore not supported by evidence found in the literature. The authors systematically use adjustment for mass instead of fat-free mass which leads to significant errors when comparing population groups. This argument is of key importance as transgender women athletes undergoing HRT increase their estradiol, affecting total body fat percentage, and also significantly reduces testosterone, reducing muscle mass, red blood cell count and other factors important for athletic performance.”
There are several points about how Hilton and Lundberg made incorrect assumptions about what measures of strength mean, or how physical size contributes to the results they used to draw their conclusions, but the most important part of the points after that is that it would seem that Hilton and Lundberg selectively included or ignored data, based on whether or not it matched the conclusions they were working towards.
From the report:
“The authors cite a study whereby testosterone-suppressed untrained transgender women see an increase of lean mass (4% leg and 2% overall) after an intense 8-week training cycle. However, they omit Roberts, Nuckols, & Krieger’s (2020) findings that untrained females also show high capacity to build muscle mass especially in upper body strength. The authors also do not show the relative strength compared to trained female competitors – a more appropriate comparison group – nor do they include that their control group without testosterone suppression gained significantly more mass and a 400% greater increase to isometric strength. The authors additionally omit that trans women participants failed to gain any noticeable gains to isometric strength. Yet despite these observations, the authors conclude “endogenous testosterone is of paramount importance for the muscular adaptation to strength training.”
So, the authors were looking at muscle gains from non-athletic people who had just finished an intense 8-week training program, and falsely implying what this means for athletes in general.
There are clearly a number of confounding factors, on top of the fact that this is a case of comparing apples to oranges.
Gender, sex, hormones, anything aside – if you get someone on an intense 8-week exercise and training program, they’re going to build muscle. That’s still not why this particular issue is so important, however.
Citing the study showing those muscle gains in transgender women, but omitting data from how cisgender women build muscle from the same training program is deliberately biased and malicious. Additionally, they didn’t compare their results to the relative strength of trained athletes, who would not have had the same sort of gains as someone just starting a training program. Furthermore, the authors neglected to mention that people who weren’t suppressing their testosterone gained a whopping 400% more isometric strength. Isometric strength is the strength capacity of muscles when not being tested in motion. It’s not strictly applicable to sports, but still a measure of strength overall, and one that showed substantially more of an increase in those who weren’t testosterone suppressed, than in those who were. Most gallingly, Hilton and Lundberg left out data showing that trans women didn’t have any noticeable gains beyond those of cisgender women from that same training program.
In short, they cherry picked the data to exclude data points that didn’t match with their desired conclusion – and when they did include data, they misrepresented it. This is one of the cardinal sins of performing scientific research: one cannot produce meaningful results, by ignoring data, or twisting it to suit an agenda. Others will, as many have in this case, notice – and it not only calls into question the validity of your findings, but your professional ethics.
The CCES report goes on and on (the portion of Appendix A just dealing with the flaws in the Hilton and Lundberg study is nearly three pages long), but the offenses are the same. They misrepresent data claiming the IOC’s 12-month testosterone suppression requirement is insufficient, while using data comparing against people who had only suppressed testosterone for two months. They misrepresent points as being important to athletic performance which have no bearing on any athletic ability. They ignore the conclusions of other work that shows no differences between cis and trans women. They suggest bone density is evidence of an advantage to trans women while providing no citations to support that suggestion. They ignored studies that show that lung size is not a good predictor of performance in sports. They ignore well studied science showing that hemoglobin levels in trans women are well within the range that cis women have – despite the impact that is known to have on endurance and overall athletic performance. Finally, they deliberately excluded data from studies they used as source material, which would have contradicted their argument.
Any of these points alone is reason for the “science” in the study to be thrown out, when making regulatory decisions. There are just so many damning flaws in the study – flaws that the Twitter link in Source #2 had already pointed out by February 16, 2022 (eleven months before the PDGA released their ruling).
How did the PDGA miss something as important as a thorough debunking of the sole study they used to support their decision? Really makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Well, if the PDGA’s science is invalid, what does the science actually say?
Admittedly, the following section of this article is going to be a bit of a living document. We will be building a repository of information and published science, to serve as an educational resource relevant to LGBTQIA+ inclusion in disc sports. That information, and any information relevant to this article, will be updated as more and better research is available.
Recently, however, the report from CCES is probably the most comprehensive review of the fairness of transgender women in sports. Throw Proud is working on simplifying the information in that report. We will update this section and our resources over time if we can produce better resources than the report itself for more easily understanding the information and conclusions contained within.
For now, we’ll provide the conclusion from that report:
“There is no firm basis available in evidence to indicate that trans women have a consistent and measurable overall performance benefit after 12 months of testosterone suppression. While an advantage in terms of Lean Body Mass (LBM), Cross Section Area (CSA) and strength may persist statistically after 12 months, there is no evidence that this translates to any performance advantage as compared to elite cis-women athletes of similar size and height. This is contrasted with other changes, such as hemoglobin (HG), which normalize within the cis women range within four months of starting testosterone suppression. For pre-suppression trans women it is currently unknown when during the first 12 months of suppression that any advantage may persist. The duration of any such advantage is likely highly dependent on the individual’s pre-suppression LBM which, in turn varies, greatly and is highly impacted by societal factors and individual circumstance.”
So, what does this all mean, in terms of disc golf performance?
The long and the short of it is, if a transgender woman complies with the IOC’s regulations (testosterone suppression to less than 10 nmol/L for a period of at least 12 months), they are competing on even footing with their cisgender competitors. Any differences in distance are caused by differences in technique, not physiology.
Okay, let’s say I believe you. Is this really fair? REALLY?
Is it fair to take away transgender competitors’ careers, because cisgender women who might also lose to other cisgender women, might also lose to them? Is it really?
Aren’t trans women dominating their divisions?
Well, let’s look at this objectively, and indulge our inner stats nerds for a bit. Let’s take a look at the 3 most visible trans women playing disc golf: Chloe Alice, Nova Politte, and Natalie Ryan.
At the time of writing, Chloe’s PDGA membership has expired. By her statements on Instagram, she has walked away from the sport unless the ruling is changed. We can see that in the 7 years since she first registered for the PDGA, she has won 5 out of the 25 sanctioned events she’s played in. Her performance in FPO has her rated #40 in the US Tour.
Nova is, by the numbers, the most successful trans woman playing disc golf. In 2022 for example, she won nearly 50% of the events she competed in. Surely that’s showing dominance of her division, right? Well, 2 of those events can’t be used to compare against other competitors – because there weren’t any (the Kanza Krush, and the KC Masters Peace Loved). 4 of those events had only 1 other competitor – and the same one, at that (Kimberly Giannola). In those 4 events, Nova and Kimberly tied twice. In events with more competitors, we see Nova won by 4 strokes at Off the Chain, 4 strokes at the Jared Hilton Memorial, 6 strokes at the Iowa Masters Championship, and 2 strokes at Worlds. Every single one of those events had at least one cisgender competitor within striking distance. A spit out here, a shanked drive there, a bad tree kick. We’ve all been there. Any one of those rounds could’ve gone the other way.
Which brings us to Natalie. Natalie is the reason we’re even having this debate right now. In 2022, Natalie won 2 events. Out of 25 events. That’s a win rate of 8%. Natalie won DGLO by 2 strokes, with 9 competitors within 10 strokes. After 3 days. On the Toboggan. At the MVP Open, Natalie went to a playoff with Kristin Tattar, with Paige Pierce one stroke behind them, and 11 other players within 10 strokes.
So how did Natalie win, if not by some unfair advantage?
Well, this is the great thing about the modern internet – we can actually go back and check the stats!
The first round at DGLO, she finished tied for 3rd. Natalie hit 100% of her scrambles, and putting 92% from C1X. She hit fairway (this stat doesn’t mean she went far, just that she wasn’t in the rough) on 70% of her shots. Second round? She finished in first, with a 1007 rated round, and a 4 stroke lead (with 9 players within 10 strokes still). 80% scramble, 88% C1X, and another 70% fairway day. Her third round was a bit rough, and allowed the field to close the gap. Ohn Scoggins was on fire that round – 100% scramble, and a whopping 100% C1X putting. Besting Natalie in both areas of play.
At the MVP Open, her first round was brutal. She was tied for 27th, only hitting 25% of her scrambles, but still holding onto a 75% C1X putting percentage. Competitors Kat Mertsch, and Kristin Tattar both shot over 1000 rated rounds (a 1003 for Kristin, and a 1011 for Kat). Her second round, she held on with some solid play (50% scramble still, but 78% C1X, and better than most of the top 10 on fairway hits, with 56%), and finished the day tied for 9th – mostly by not losing as much ground as the other players. At this point, Kristin Tattar’s injuries were starting to affect her play. Tattar only hit fairway 50% of the time, only hit 33% of her scrambles, was 50% in C1X, and missed all 4 putts from C2. Natalie’s third round was brilliant. 1019 rated golf – 72% fairway hits (at Maple Hill), 86% C1X, and only one scramble (which, to be fair, she missed). In the fourth round, the top 3 finishers were absolutely on fire in the circle. Paige Pierce and Kristin Tattar both shot 1008 rated rounds, both beating Natalie in fairway hits and scrambles, as well as getting closer to the pin than she did more often than not. Where Natalie held onto her lead was in putting – and even then, her cisgender competitors didn’t make it easy for her. Paige had 90% C1X, Natalie had 91%, and Kristin had an incredible 100% C1X make percentage. It all came down to the playoff, with Natalie and Kristin both sitting tied at +1, and 11 competitors within 10 strokes – after 4 days of golf, at Maple Hill.
The playoff only went one hole. Kristin shanked her drive, and lost by one stroke. In a post-round interview (if that video doesn’t cue up to the right spot, the interview starts at 3:24:55), Kristin attributed her loss to her bad drive off the tee, as well as not playing well all weekend – but we also know from her social media posts after that, that she was suffering from a badly injured finger, as well as an elbow that was in need of surgery.
So, when it comes down to it, the numbers don’t lie. Natalie Ryan just plays good golf – when she does well…
Why are you giving so much information on Kristin Tattar, a cis woman?
Do you remember how one of the stats we mentioned above is the win rate? Well, let’s compare the win rates in 2022 for the top 10 FPO players real quick. For these rankings, we’ll be using UDisc’s FPO World Rankings data, found here.
| Rank | Player | # of Events | # of Wins | Win Rate |
| 10 | Holyn Handley | 29 | 5 | 17.2% |
| 9 | Hailey King | 18 | 2 | 11.1% |
| 8 | Natalie Ryan | 25 | 2 | 8% |
| 7 | Eveliina Salonen | 19 | 3 | 15.8% |
| 6 | Paige Pierce | 26 | 7 | 26.9% |
| 5 | Ohn Scoggins | 37 | 11 | 29.7% |
| 4 | Missy Gannon | 23 | 2 | 8.7% |
| 3 | Henna Blomroos | 17 | 1 | 5.9% |
| 2 | Catrina Allen | 27 | 6 | 22.2% |
| 1 | Kristin Tattar | 23 | 11 | 47.8% |
Kristin Tattar won nearly half of the events she competed in, in 2022. Her win rate is nearly double that of some of the best women in FPO, and nearly six times that of Natalie Ryan’s.
That, dear reader, is what dominating your division looks like. No competitor in FPO comes even close to the success that Kristin Tattar has achieved. That is why we focused on her. This whole discussion – the fear, the anger, all of it, is based on the assumption that transgender women have such an advantage that they will dominate the protected divisions. Transgender women haven’t, but a cisgender woman has – and no one questions the amount of work Kristin Tattar puts in, to get the results she has.
Does Natalie just not put in enough work to do her best?
I asked Natalie what her training regimen is, so I could put her performance into perspective (especially in light of her…inflammatory comments about the intensity with which other FPO competitors train). Here is her response, in her own words:
“My weekly regimen usually started out with a Monday rest day since the tournament had just wrapped up. On Tuesday I would always hit the course early to play a round in the conditions that we would compete in (8-9am start time, round typically lasts 3ish hours) during this round I would typically throw 5ish shots a hole so that I could try as many angles and shapes as possible to learn the course quickly. After that I would typically head to lunch, rest for an hour or so, then head to a field for 2 hours to get some throws in to either learn something or fix something that wasn’t working from the previous event. For Wednesday I would again start with a round at 8-9 am following the same sort of plan from the first day but I would throw the line that I felt was the best for the hole with several discs to learn which is best for the hole. After that I would eat and rest an hour like usual then I would head to the gym and get 45min-1hr of cardio in then head to the fields again to keep pushing my skills to their limit for another hour or 2. Thursday was usually the day before the event but I would still play a practice round to really finalize my game plan for the event, throwing max two shots a hole to keep my arm a bit fresher. After lunch and a quick rest I would hit the fields again for a couple of hours then rest for the event for the remainder of the day. Friday is tournament round early but after that I would evaluate what I did well and what I didn’t and after lunch I would hit a field to try and correct what I was doing wrong, typically these field work sessions were shorter to save my arm for the following day. Saturday and Sunday were the same as Friday. then rinse repeat for the year. on off weeks when I didn’t have a tournament coming up i typically did alternating rest and heavy field work days(6+ hours)”
I’m exhausted just reading that.
Natalie Ryan trains like disc golf is her full-time job, because it is – or it was until December 12, 2022. More to the point, if she can train that hard, and still only achieve an 8% win rate – where is the domination? Where is the unfair advantage? If she had one, that level of training would have shown it – she would be winning at a rate much closer to Kristin Tattar’s.
What if the advantage doesn’t show up on golf shots – what if it’s more readily apparent in one particular situation? What would an unfair strength advantage present as? It would show up as consistent results in long drive competitions. A big, open field, where all you need to do is throw as far as possible. If a trans woman has a strength advantage over cis women, that is where it would be undeniable. Natalie has competed in 5 long drive competitions: 2021 and 2022 USDGC, 2022 PDGA World’s, and twice at Throw Pink events. She won the 2021 USDGC distance competition with a throw of 458 feet – only 4 feet further than Ella Hansen. In 2022, Natalie maxed out at 418 feet in qualifying, and didn’t even make it to the finals (Ella Hansen would go on to win with a throw of 552 feet – 134 feet longer than Natalie’s throw). In fact, of the 7 women who competed in 2022, Natalie Ryan had the shortest throw. At 2022 World’s, Natalie threw 430 feet – which was only good for 4th place. Heidi Lane out-threw her by 17 feet, Paige Pierce by 46 feet, and Ella Hansen by 65 feet.
A note – I tried to find the results from the Throw Pink distance competitions, and was unable to find them online anywhere. I don’t intend to leave those results out. If anyone has the official results of those, I would be more than happy to add them to this article.
So, while Natalie did win the USDGC’s long drive competition the first year they had an FPO field, it wasn’t by any unbeatable margin. The rest of her distance results fail to show any indication that she has any sort of advantage over her cisgender competitors.
So, if there isn’t an advantage, and trans women aren’t dominating their divisions, who is all of this unfair to?
Simple – the transgender women. Several of them have had their entire career taken away by this ruling. Those who haven’t, have already begun to face animosity and aggression on the course. Even before the PDGA’s ruling, the anger towards us had become so bad that the PDGA felt the need to expand their rules to allow for disciplinary action against people who harassed or bullied people online over this very subject. The PDGA has, by instituting these new rules, sided with those who have taken it upon themselves to crusade against us playing with our peers.
Many trans women have walked away from disc golf entirely, because of this.
In kowtowing to the fear about cis women missing out on some payouts in FPO, the PDGA has effectively taken steps to ensure that trans women lose all of them.
Can’t they just compete in MA/MPO? M means “mixed”…
Sure, if they want to donate their entry fee at every event.
That’s not hyperbole. Consider the scores that FPO players put up, on shortened layouts compared to what MPO plays. Take Natalie Ryan’s 2022 DGLO performance, for example. We can’t compare scores directly, because of the difference in tee pads between MPO and FPO, but we can infer performance using her round ratings. Her rounds were rated 983, 1007, and 959 that weekend. When we compare that to the MPO ratings, do you know where she’d slot in, to find a male competitor with similar ratings?
103rd place.
That is, of course, wild speculation – but given the distance capabilities of an FPO player versus an MPO player alone (especially considering Natalie isn’t even a standout in FPO, in that regard), it is as useful an estimate as we need.
FPO players can not hold their own against MPO players – certainly not at the elite level. Women don’t throw far enough on drives, and whether they’re cis or trans, they still have to switch from putting to upshots at a much closer distance to the pin than their MPO counterparts. I’ve seen myself, where lines that I would normally have thrown to make a hole easy before I transitioned, are completely closed off to me now – solely because of the distance I’ve lost to HRT. There is simply no way to sustain a career as a touring player in MPO, for a woman – regardless of whether she’s cis or trans. They may win at the local level, but anyone who’s seen the difference in the caliber of golf between local events and the DGPT has to admit that they don’t compare – and that doesn’t even begin to touch how much less money there is to be made, playing solely at the local level. You can’t make a career out of your passion, doing that.
So, no. We can’t just play in MA/MPO – not if it’s actually fairness that you care about, and not just excluding us because we’re different.
Why should we care about fairness to trans players, if we’re not trans ourselves?
Remember what we said early on, about Ella Hansen being mistaken for a trans woman when the DGPT posted a Tweet about her distance competition success?
That can happen to any woman playing. That can happen to any woman doing anything. We’ve seen transphobic anger pointed at cis women in so many settings at this point, that we could put together an article easily as long as this one, just detailing all of the cis women that angry people insisted were transgender.
This has happened in other sports, as well. In Utah, a cisgender high school student was investigated after parents of two competitors filed a complaint suggesting she may be transgender (after the state passed a ban on trans girls competing in sports), after she beat their daughters by a wide margin.
This was predicted by LGBTQIA+ rights groups, continues to happen, and will continue to happen anywhere that trans women are banned from competition against their peers. It isn’t based on logic, or a concern for fairness – it is rooted in transphobia. People are afraid of, angry at, and disgusted with transgender people simply for existing – and they’ve been groomed by conservative pundits and media outlets to stoke those feelings for several years now. This is why so many people have such a strong aversion to trans women competing against cis women, despite there not only being no evidence of an advantage, but ample evidence that you have to twist the data in order to show there even could be.
Which brings us, at last, to the PDGA’s survey.
Yeah, what about that? That survey was pretty weird…
Look, we’re not going to get into the ideological questions that seemed to be cataloging peoples’ political stances. That’s been run up the flagpole enough times, by enough people, that it’d just be a waste of time to do here.
But, that doesn’t mean we’re just going to let the PDGA off the hook for how that survey was built, and handled.
The PDGA said this, about why they produced that survey:
“In following this framework, the PDGA took several steps to study this issue. Section 6.1 of the IOC framework states that organizations should utilize peer reviewed research in determining if there is a disproportionate competitive advantage or a safety risk, which led the PDGA to form the Medical Subcommittee. Section 8.1 of this framework encouraged organizations to meaningfully consult with a cross-section of athletes who may be negatively affected, which is what drove the decision to conduct a survey of the membership”
Emphasis ours.
Who is it that would potentially be negatively affected by the inclusion of trans women in the protected divisions, or a decision to exclude them? Women, and no one else.
The PDGA’s system is aware of the gender of each registered player, active or not. If you try to register for an event in a division their system knows you’re not eligible for, it won’t even let you complete the registration process. This is something I’ve seen myself, as I tried to hold a spot in a tournament where the FA1 slots were rapidly filling, while waiting for the PDGA to put together the reclassification form.
It would have been trivial for the PDGA to send the survey out solely to players classified for play in FA/FPO – but they sent it to all members.
It would have been trivial for the PDGA to ensure the survey itself knew which player was filling it out, and thus ensure the integrity of the data gathered – but they allowed players to self-identify both divisions, and genders. This led to, as several commenters have pointed out, more responses being filed for women in the DGPT, than have ever actually played in the DGPT. This point alone guarantees that the entire data set is useless for data driven decision making. The moment you can’t trust data, you can’t use it to inform your decisions – yet the PDGA board did just that.
They asked tens of thousands of cis men how they felt about trans women competing in FA/FPO, and let as many of them pretend they were women as wanted to, and then treated it like that data (as well as the study we addressed earlier, and the anti-trans hate pundit they quoted to support it) were righteous justification for the implementation of policies that have solved nothing, and caused plenty of real, measurable harm to both cisgender and transgender women playing disc golf.
Did they get the other parts right? We already knew that survey was screwy…
Not really.
The bills that are currently being passed in red states, to ban (or even criminalize) gender affirming care for children under the age of 18 were well known, for more than 2 years before the PDGA board began deliberating on the new rules. Why would any organization seek to set rules that would be illegal to adhere to, in nearly half the states in the country they’re based out of?
Why did this only matter after Natalie Ryan won? Nova Politte had been the world champion for 2 years running, and despite angry discussions among the player base, the PDGA felt no need to take action. It would seem that it was solely because it might impact the views of paid livestreams, that there was any urgency to act upon the “issue”.
If this is about fairness in FA/FPO, which seems rooted in testosterone levels, why only test trans women? If this is about fairness, wouldn’t it make more sense to test all FA/FPO competitors, to ensure that none of the cis or intersex players wouldn’t have testosterone levels that could potentially affect their performance (as was the cast with Caster Semenya, who was made to take testosterone blockers in order to continue running competitively). Why not do things the way other governing sports organizations do, and cover the expense of the tests themselves, rather than placing additional financial burdens on trans players when most insurances don’t cover these tests?
In light of all of this, the ruling almost exclusively banning play from live streamed events, and considering the president of the PDGA board is an outspoken opponent of the LGBTQIA+ community, it is incredibly difficult to view the ruling as a decision truly rooted in a desire for fairness and inclusivity, rather than one based on a desire to get trans women out of sight. That’s not inclusive – that’s discrimination.
If you want to help, it’s simple. Speak up, show up.
Speak up about this issue, anywhere you can. The trans community can’t be the only ones speaking out about this. Show up anywhere you can, to show support for the trans community. Let the PDGA know you disagree with the ruling, or hit them where they care – in the viewership numbers on live coverage of the pro tour.
If you aren’t supportive of trans inclusion in FA/FPO, show empathy, and be kind. Whether you’re one of competitors or not, take some time to consider what it’s like to be in a trans woman’s shoes in the disc golf community, hearing and seeing people speaking out with such anger about things they know so little about. Making us out to be villains, solely for wanting to compete on even footing with other women. You don’t have to support inclusion, to not be an asshole about it.