Athlete exodus rocks transgender study

Three of the four elite transgender athletes who were taking part in a research study funded by the IOC have dropped out of the program.

Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges is believed to be only athletle left in the study. Picture: Andy Jones.

Three of the four elite transgender athletes who were taking part in a research study funded by the IOC have dropped out of the program.

The study, being led by Joanna Harper of the University of Loughborough, now has only one athlete, understood to be the cyclist Emily Bridges, whose sporting performance, strength and speed are being assessed over a period of time after transitioning and undergoing hormone therapy.

The results will then be benchmarked against the performances of athletes who were born female. “Four athletes had signed up to the longitudinal study and three have dropped out,” Ms Harper confirmed.

The IOC is funding the research with the aim of assessing the fairness of transgender athletes – who were born male – competing in women’s competitions with reduced testosterone levels. The IOC’s guidelines allow that to take place as long as trans athletes have had testosterone levels below five nanomoles per litre for a year (men usually have 10 to 35 nmol/L, while a woman’s level is usually 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L).

Bridges, who was prevented from competing in elite women’s races after a change to British ­Cycling’s rules last year, still hopes to do so in the near future and told ITV Wales in November that: “The reduction of testosterone creates a fair playing field.”

The 22-year-old set a national junior men’s record over 25 miles (40km) in 2018 before trans­itioning.

Campaigners such as Sharron Davies, the 1980 Olympic swimming silver medallist, believe that going through male puberty provides a physical advantage to trans women that those born female never receive.

Davies said the fact that three of the four athletes had dropped out of the study raised questions over whether any significant conclusions could be drawn from the findings.

“The IOC is funding this study,” she said, “but, given that three of the four trans athletes who were taking part have now dropped out, what conclusions will be able to be drawn from it?

“Compared to the research ­already out there showing the ­permanent physical benefits obtained from a person going through male puberty, this will add little value to the data.”

Ms Harper said she had never claimed that the study would provide definitive evidence of the effects of transitioning on athletes.

“I never claimed we could,” she said. “It is the first time a study of this kind has been undertaken and it will be a contribution to the research data. Somebody had to be the first. This is just the beginning.”

Dr Emma Hilton, a development biologist at the University of Manchester, who has advised several sports including World Rugby on transgender policies, questioned the value of only one athlete being involved.

“One athlete is a case study, and while it’s useful data to have, we already have tens (if not more) case studies we can lean on to understand performance changes as trans women suppress testosterone,” she said. “It will take a decade or longer to have anything approaching a controlled timeline study in a cohort of athletes.”

The next tests in the study involving Bridges are planned for March, and Ms Harper expects to publish some findings this year. Ms Harper said that she was conducting two other studies, which were not assessing changes over time, involving 15 and 12 transgender athletes respectively.

“The longitudinal study (which examines the same individuals over time) is methodologically the strongest study that we have and, realistically, it will be 20 years before we have definitive data,” she said. “This is the first time that a prospective longitudinal study has been done on a trans athlete. It means that we get lab-based data over a period of time as opposed to a cross-section at one point of time. Longitudinal data is more important in science. We have a grant from the IOC and they are flexible about how we use the money.”

Ms Harper has previously ­accepted that the low number of elite-level trans athletes was “a serious limitation” on the research.

Bridges told Cycling Weekly last year that she had been participating in the Loughborough study as well as tracking her own data, which had indicated a 13 to 16 per cent drop in her power outputs.

The Times