January 31, 2025
World Triathlon Effectively Bans Trans Women From Competing

(Photo: Amateur women line up at the World Triathlon Age-Group Championships in Pontevedra | Tommy Zaferes/World Triathlon)
By: Kelly O’Mara
World Triathlon, the international governing body for tri, just became the latest sport to take a hard right turn on allowing trans women to compete in amateur or elite races. And, given that neither the science nor the number of trans people in existence abruptly changed this month, it’s not clear why they did this or for what goal…
The previous World Triathlon policy
The old World Tri policy said that trans women could compete in the women’s category after their testosterone levels were maintained below certain limits for a certain amount of time — 2.5 nmol/L continuously for two years — and that they could not have competed in the men’s category in the previous four years.
There were people who had problems with that policy from both ends, but it was generally viewed as a compromise position. It created some guardrails for concerns about fairness, but also established a pathway for trans athletes to participate in our sport. World Triathlon’s old policy was also very much in line with most sports’ policies and with the IOC, all of which established to varying degrees some level of medical threshold or transition and timeframe.
Plus, it should be pointed out, it seemed to be working fine?
There were not huge numbers of trans women dominating amateur races. While there are some examples, which people will dredge up to make a point, trans women simply were not and do not win or podium in triathlon at rates higher than the proportion they make up of the population. There were also NO pro or elite athletes who were born male or were previously told they were male or who competed as men now competing as women. Zero.
And this didn’t suddenly become a huge problem this month. So what happened?
The new World Triathlon policy
World Triathlon, under new president Antonio Fernández Arimany, abruptly changed course and now says that — effective retroactively to January 1 — amateur or age-group trans women can never ever compete in the women’s category. No matter if they’ve fully medically transitioned, when they transitioned, if they did it before they hit puberty. Never.
Instead, World Tri has now renamed the men’s category the “open” category and all amateur trans women must compete in the men’s open category.
The new policy also creates a kind of medical review board for elite/pro trans women athletes to (in theory) gain approval to compete as women. They must maintain testosterone levels below 2.5 nmol/L for four years, compete in the men’s “open” category during that time, and submit all of their medical records to a panel that will determine if “transgender female eligibility conditions” have been met.
There are, however, a few logical problems with these plans.
Why the new policy is a bad idea
1. First, this new policy literally creates a stricter ban for amateur athletes than for elite athletes.
Which seems to run counter to claims that anti-trans advocates are only concerned about “fairness” or to suggestions that amateur trans women are still welcome to participate. While I have my doubts any elite athlete will ever be approved by this new medical review board, at a minimum the option should be available for the regular average age-group athlete who’s just looking to do their best, too.
But, most importantly, it needs to be pointed out:
2. Simply renaming the men’s category “open” is not the super welcoming inclusive move people want to pretend it is.
In reality, how that will play out in amateur races, on the ground, is that it will still be the men’s category, with all men competing, and then very occasionally a woman, or two women, who look and present as women will be forced to line up and race with all men. And I’m sure everyone will be super chill and cool and welcoming when that happens…
The choice those women (in addition to women who see how they are treated) will inevitably be faced with is: Do I stick around in a sport that doesn’t want me or us? And what many of those women will actually do, because it’s what I would do in their situation, is simply quit triathlon.
And isn’t that really the ultimate inevitable outcome and goal of policies that eliminate trans people’s participation from sectors of life? To push them out. If we make policies that say they can’t participate in sports unless they medically transitioned before puberty and then we make laws banning kids from transitioning, what we’re doing is effectively banning people entirely from existing within a part of society. No matter how much we say we’re not.
3. The third problem, though, is how this will be enforced. Because it inevitably leads to policing of who seems or looks feminine enough.
Since it’s in no way realistic to require medical records for all amateur athletes who do large mass participation events, World Triathlon has said they’ll enforce the policy if and when athletes report other athletes. (Crossfit recently adopted a similar problematic plan.)
What that means is that triathletes are going to be turning in other triathletes who they “suspect” of being secretly trans for reasons like: looking too masculine, having too many muscles, being “too good.” Already we’ve had countless examples of this happening in other sports and locker rooms and gyms, of kids being harassed and booed by parents who “suspected” some 8-year-old was trans because they were too big or too much better than their own kid; we’ve had women, those who were and those who were not trans, accosted or attacked in bathrooms simply because they didn’t look feminine enough. This is a terrible precedent to set and one that hurts ALL WOMEN. This kind of social self-policing has never gone well, ever.
When we adopt a “report on your neighbor” approach — whether that’s “so and so looks like they might be Jewish,” or “he seems homosexual, arrest him” — it has never worked out. These do not ever turn out to be bright spots in our collective history.
Two exceptions to know about
For triathletes, there are, however, two big caveats to this global cultural hard turn:
- Ironman’s policy remains as it was for now: Which is what World Triathlon’s policy used to be, that trans women can compete in the women’s category after a certain amount of time maintaining testosterone below established limits. And, if they don’t meet that criteria, Ironman allows them compete in a separate “open” category that is distinct from and is *not* the men’s category. Ultimately, Ironman may fall in line with World Triathlon’s changes, but it is not currently.
- In the U.S., the USA Triathlon policy also remains as it was: For races governed by World Triathlon — ie. if you want to represent your country in your age-group at the world championships — or by the NCAA or other elite eligibility criteria, then rules have to comply with World Triathlon or the governing body. But for all other races in the U.S., which is most races, most grassroots show-up-to-your-local-park-and-just-do-the-thing races, the rule is if you go to packet pick-up and present your ID to check-in, then the volunteer handing out registration is going to believe you. Because why the hell wouldn’t they.