Emily Seebohm joins transgender athlete debate, says biological males will ‘always be faster and stronger’
Olympic gold medallist Emily Seebohm has joined the transgender athlete debate, saying biological males are “always going to be faster and stronger”.
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Olympic gold medallist Emily Seebohm has joined the transgender athlete debate, saying biological males are “always going to be faster and stronger” and female athletes deserve a “level playing field”.
The 29-year-old swimming champion’s comments come after fellow Aussie Olympian Emma McKeon said earlier this week she wouldn’t want to race against a biological male “because it’s just not fair”.
Speaking to Nine’s Today on Thursday, Seebohm said she agreed with McKeon.
“Of course, biological males are always going to be faster and stronger than I will ever be in my life,” she said.
"We need to have that same level playing field just like we do with drugs in sport."@emcbomb weighs in on the transgender athlete debate, speaking from her perspective as an Olympic swimmer. #9Todaypic.twitter.com/Z4wkpyr8MT
— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) April 20, 2022
“I want to compete on that same level playing field, I want to know I’m in that same field where everyone has that same ability of strength, has that same ability of speed, has that same ability of power.
“I need to make sure that’s a priority because we want that level playing field, we want to be able to swim and the races be neck and neck because we are even, we don’t want people winning by 10, eight seconds.
“If I was swimming in a male event I wouldn’t even place, I wouldn’t have got a medal in Tokyo, and a male who came eighth in Tokyo in the same event as me would have won the event by about five or six seconds, so there’s the difference we’re talking about.”
American college swimmer Lia Thomas, who began to dominate the female competition after transitioning a few years ago, has sparked renewed debate over whether those born male have an unfair physiological advantage.
One university student who missed out on competing in the 500-yard women’s freestyle at last month’s collegiate championships in Atlanta, Georgia said her spot was “taken away” by Thomas.
“I know you could say I had the opportunity to swim faster and make the top 16, but this situation makes it a bit different and I can’t help but be angry or sad,” Virginia Tech swimmer Reka Gyorgy wrote on social media.
“It hurts me, my team and other women in the pool. One spot was taken away from the girl who got ninth in the 500 free and didn’t make it back to the A final preventing her from being an All-American. Every event that transgender athletes competed in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet.”
McKeon, who won five gold medals in the pool in Tokyo, said she doubted whether she would ever be faced with the scenario, but stressed the importance of fairness in competitive sport.
“I mean, I personally wouldn’t want to be racing against someone who is biologically a male, so that’s a concern,” McKeon said at Griffith University’s A Better Future For All seminar on Tuesday.
“I don’t think I’m going to have to race against a trans swimmer, I don’t think it’s going to come to that point.
“But now that it’s a growing thing, the sport has to think about how to handle it and how to deal with it, because you do want to be inclusive, but you don’t want to have females racing against swimmers who are biologically male because it’s just not fair.”
The issue has also emerged as a federal election flashpoint after Prime Minister Scott Morrison was forced to defend Katherine Deves, the Liberal candidate for Warringah, over anti-transgender comments.
NSW Treasurer Matt Kean, state MP Felicity Wilson and Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman have all called for Ms Deves to be disendorsed.
Mr Morrison said this week Australians were “fed up with walking on eggshells” and that he didn’t support people “getting cancelled”.
“What I won’t allow, is for those who are seeking to cancel Katherine simply because she has a different view to them on the issue of women and girls in sport,” Mr Morrison told reporters on the campaign trail.
“I think Australians are getting pretty fed up with having to walk on eggshells every day because they may or may not say something one day that’s going to upset someone.”
Speaking to Today, Seebohm said she wanted swimming to be “inclusive, we want everyone to be involved”.
“I love my sport and I want to share it with everyone, but we also need to think of fairness, too, and what’s fair for the athletes and how they prepare and perform, we need to have that same level playing field just like we do with drugs in sport,” she said.
Asked where the balance was between inclusion and fairness, she said it was “just an unknown” at this stage.
“It’s so fresh, it’s so new, obviously there’s just going to be more and more [transgender athletes] coming through, and we want to see that, we want to see that in our sport, we want everyone to be included, but we need to work out where that inclusion is, where we can make sure that this sport is going to be as fair as it can be,” she said.
Originally published as Emily Seebohm joins transgender athlete debate, says biological males will ‘always be faster and stronger’
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