Gender Confusion at the Games
by Denice Spangler Adams
Watching the most uniquely spectacular Paris Opening Ceremony in Olympic viewing history, tears of joy swelled for every athlete’s accomplishments, and the pure beauty of the best of humanity uniting to ‘play to win’ for country and self.
Over the next two weeks we will see 11,046 super star athletes compete: 5,630 males and 5,416 females. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has distributed its athlete quota places equally between male and female competitive athletes. Progress!
My thoughts returned to 1968, and the excitement when my sophomore biology classmate Steve Hug made the U.S. Men Gymnast Team to compete in the Mexico Games – the youngest ever. Back then, 781 of 5,516 athletes were women. My thoughts continued to my beloved disciplined mom who participated in the 1932 Olympic Games as an exhibition gymnast, with only 127 females of 1,332 athletes.
Listening to the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) address millions, maybe billions, worldwide at the Opening Ceremony glued me to the tube when he stated that the IOC supports the participation of any athlete who has qualified, who meets eligibility criteria to compete as established by their sports International Federation (IF).
The IOC will not discriminate against gender identity and/or sex characteristics.
What does this mean exactly?
In 1968, Mexico through 1998, the IOC mandated gender verification for female athletes to prevent unfair competition by males masquerading as females.
Why the IOC policy change in 2020? Well … Agenda 2020 made 40 recommendations: one was to foster gender equality by achieving 50 percent female participation and encouraging mixed gender team events in which men and women compete on a single team – presumably like mixed doubles tennis, handball, or archery.
But that’s not what happened.
The First Known Transgender Competitor
At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard made history as the first “transgender” athlete in Olympic History. How many women have the upper body strength to weight lift or bench press like a male? Also, when implementing the new quota system, do trans athletes count against the female or male IOC’s gender quota? Is gender DNA the basic criteria, or what exactly? No need to get into Olympic Village sleeping accommodations. Competitive athletes are disciplined: they’re there to win.
Why even care about the trans policy change? Females are historically second class. Why can’t some of us simply adjust to our lot in life?
We each have our own reasons. Mine is having observed my exemplary mom figure out a way to access what was needed throughout life. She drummed into me to strategically fight, that females are not innately lesser, to pursue equal consideration when exceeding the capacity of a male if committed to meeting their focused work standard. Capable females must find a way to access opportunities. Beat them at their own game. After all, in August 1920 the 19th amendment finally ensured American women the right to vote. (Twenty nations preceded the U.S., with New Zealand allowing women to vote in 1893 national elections.)
How I wish I could hear the reaction of my Los Angeles-raised fatherless mom if she had known that when Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin revived the 1896 Olympic sporting event, he wrote in 1912 that he envisioned the Games as an “exaltation of male athleticism … with the applause of women as a reward.” Got it. The role of women is to clap and cheer men. That’s ok; it’s just not for all. We seek competition.
Female Olympic History
It was not until the second Modern Paris Olympic Games in 1900 that 23 women officially competed when they were allowed to enter into the lawn tennis, croquet, golf, equestrian, and yachting, competitions.
The St. Louis 1904 Olympic Games were the first at which gold, silver, and bronze, medals were awarded. Boxing, freestyle wrestling, decathlon and a dumbbells event all made their debuts on the program.
The 1908 London Olympic Games had 37 women athletes of 2,008 competitors. There were only 5 medal sports in which women competed: archery, figure skating (singles and pairs), rackets (doubles), tennis (singles), and indoor tennis. Moreover, the 1908 Games prompted establishment of standard rules for sports, and selection of judges from different countries rather than just the host: a U.S. runner was accused by British officials of interfering with a British runner.
Known as the “Swedish Masterpiece,” the 1912 Olympics were the best organized and most efficiently run Games with approximately 2,400 athletes representing 28 countries: 48 women in 12 sports. Electronic timing devices and a public address system were used for the first time.
The scheduled Olympics in 1916 were canceled due to the outbreak of World War I.
The 1920 Games included 65 women of 2,626 athletes who competed in 113 events across 18 sports in Antwerp, Belgium. The Games took place from April through September. The United States sent 14 women to compete, including our first women's swimming team.
Female athlete frustration continued to build. The doors weren’t opening.
The attempted solution to this inequity occurred in 1921, three years before the last Paris Olympics in 1924, when a small number of female athletes – still excluded from the world Games – held their own event.
Still little progress was made with the IOC by the 1924 Paris Olympics when only 100 women of 3,000 athletes represented 44 countries.
The 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, Netherlands, had 277 women among the 2,883 athletes who competed in 109 events across 14 sports: from 65 to 100 to 277 female athletes – wow! More than double the number of previous Games. The Olympic Flame appeared for the first time, as did women's athletic events in the city Olympic program. Also, Canada sent its first female athlete in 1928.
The 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, saw few athletes and were the first to last 16 days. Only 1,332 (1,206 men, 126 women) athletes could make the journey. Why so few? Ships had difficulty getting athletes to Los Angeles. It was a long and costly journey and there was a severe world-wide economic depression.
Women gymnastics was to be previewed in 1932 as an exhibition sport for possible inclusion as a competitive sport in future games. My mom and her great friend Vlasta just happened to be at the right place at the right time to try out, and as they said, “lucked out.” They were invited to perform. Participating female gymnasts were each given a bronze-colored Olympic medal. As an aside, the 1932 Olympic Games probably had the first real press service and intensive promotion campaign. Over 100,000 attended opening ceremony which lifted spirits during the Great Depression.
Between 1948-1968 in Mexico (classmate Steve Hug’s year), the Olympic Committee added canoeing, equestrian, volleyball, and shooting to the women’s competitive sports. In 1976, basketball, handball and rowing added.
Finally, in 1981, the first woman was elected to the International Olympic Committee! In 1984, cycling was added. Then big changes started the addition in 1996 with women’s softball and soccer! Attention shifted to our daughters.
In 2000, water polo, triathlon, pentathlon and weightlifting were added. Then boxing in 2012 with three weight categories. The US teen from Loredo, Texas is expected to win Gold! And in 2016, the world saw rugby approved which our USA women won in 2024! Opportunities for women in all but 39 Olympic events!
No Olympic Trans Swimmers Allowed
As the mom of two now adult athletes, a male and female, trained in Santa Barbara I’ve watched the differences in gender abilities: swimming, water polo, soccer, tennis, basketball, gymnastics, baseball, golf— they did them all. I coached in three sports.
Both were members of 805 Water Polo Club founded by Kathy Neushul, whose 2 daughters are Gold Olympians and her third, Ryann, going for Gold. My daughter started with Ryann at age 3 in local high school pools. Up by 4:30a in the pool by 5a come rain or shine: burr! After school the other sports (3 hours of gymnastics) plus instruments til 9p.
By age 12, differences and skill sets are noticeable. The 805 Club Teams sometimes gender cross train to better prepare for competitions. (Female suits have zippered backs; male speedos are tight; no fingernailing.) Some of our best high school males travel to Serbia to practice against their Olympic Gold males (which led local philanthropist George Lily linking us formally as sister cities). From observation, most 805 Club members compete in college Varsity water polo (my son MIT) and/or swimming. They’re disciplined, pushed, 100% Neushul schooled!
The best of our Olympic swimmers train together (Fink said Katie Ledecky pushes him at the Gator Club in FL where they train together). The Gator Club has trained the best: Dressel and Lochte 4th and 5th in earned men’s Gold , plus Ledecky first in women’s Gold swimming medals. Multiple Gold medalist Ryan Murphy participates in international cross gender training camps for swimmers.
However, supervised training is where the buck stops. Trans swimmer Lia Thomas lost his-her legal battle to participate in the Olympics. In 2023, World Aquatics banned transgender women who have been through male puberty from competing in women’s races. Three judges dismissed Thomas’ request. Our bodies are different. Period.
Fast forward to these next two weeks as we celebrate sport, competition, and global unity.
Women have made great progress. We cannot risk going backwards. We need specific answers to our many questions to ensure female Olympians – and female athletes at every level – enter fair competition against their biological gender.
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Denice Spangler Adams is a gerontologist, former developer of retirement communities and licensed medical facilities. She has served on executive boards focused on education, illegal immigration, housing, and public policy.
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Excellent article. The Dems and Liberals will stop at nothing to fundamentally change the world as it was created (per Obama). These are satan worshiping people put into power by big money power brokers. These people know no fear, because our constitution has been taken over by bureaucrats that are running the world. I hate to say this, but it is our fault for being so quiet and lazy. I wish I had the capability to fund an Olympic event that was fair. I'm boycotting all TV broadcasts of this year's Olympic events and any sponsor. I know, big deal.
Thank you, Denice. In 2020 you wrote a terrific Noozhawk Opinion piece in which you took apart Randy Alcorn's ignorant dismissal of people who voted for Trump. Four years later, I'm still grateful we have you speaking up about true equality for not just women but all people. Because things have only gotten more entangled in political power games where the word “equality” goes. The Left is waging a war to transform America into a have and have-not nation in which only the Leftist rulers will decide who deserves to get ahead. But it's all wrapped up in a narrative of battling oppression so a lot of women are not just buying it but promoting it. The oddest thing about the “liberal” women who spew their hatred of Trump and his supporters - that they're misogynistic and that Trump wants to set women back fifty years - is they don't see that their support of Leftwing “transgender rights” is actually the real misogyny. It's the real danger to all the advances in women's equality made in this country. Nowhere is this danger more apparent to anyone with any sense than sports.