In the soft way a concerned parent talks to their child, Premier Danielle Smith unveiled to Albertans, in a video message late January 2024, her government’s sweeping plan to prohibit hormonal treatment, puberty blockers and gender-affirming surgery for children 15 years and younger.
One political observer called Smith’s video a fine performance, “communicating with empathy and sounding entirely reasonable while doing the bidding of the very social conservatives she claims to disagree with.”
“I strongly believe,” Smith said in the video, “that we as a society must support and reach out with kindness and inclusion to those who identify as transgender and work to eliminate the discrimination they often experience in their lives.”
The video continues with Smith saying transgender females have a biological unfair advantage when competing against young women and girls in sports, with the number of competitors becoming too high.
Critics don’t buy Smith’s claims.
“It is rooted in misinformation and disinformation,” said equity, diversity and inclusion practitioner Eva Bošnjak.
No research
The facts — or lack of facts — contradict Smith’s claims, said Bošnjak, bringing into question how Smith arrived at her conclusion about the unfair advantage of transgender athletes.
“The reality is that we simply do not have enough research from particularly a physiological perspective that shows that trans women or transfeminine people have an unfair biological advantage in sport.”
Research supports Bošnjak’s comments.
A 2021 scientific review conducted by E-Alliance, that was commissioned by the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sports, little biological data and faulty research methodologies exist. According to the review, the available evidence does not prove that trans women who have undertaken testosterone suppression outperform cis women on an elite level.
“There is certainly no data that shows that trans girls, so this would be trans youth, none of it shows that people of that age would have an unfair advantage in sport,” said Bošnjak.
Information unavailable
The Calgary Journal contacted four provincial athletic organizations — Basketball Alberta, Baseball Alberta, Hockey Alberta, and Rugby Alberta — for information about the number of transgender athletes currently competing in their respective sports. Out of those four organizations, Rugby Alberta was the only one to respond but didn’t have much to share with the Calgary Journal or the provincial government.
President of Rugby Alberta, Chris Cooke, said information regarding transgender athletes is not something it shares with the Alberta Government, echoing previous academic research that suggests there is not a lot of reliable data about how many transgender athletes compete in Alberta.
Rugby Alberta follows the Rugby Canada trans-inclusion policy and notes that trans athletes are also not obligated to disclose their identity.
“Individuals participating should be able to participate as the gender with which they identify and not be subject to requirements for disclosure of personal information beyond those required of cisgender athletes,” said Cooke. “Individuals are not required to disclose their trans identity or history to Rugby Alberta or any of Rugby Alberta’s representatives.”
Alberta government responds
The Calgary Journal also reached out to Smith’s office for comment, requesting the information the premier used to make decisions about transgender athletes. A spokesperson responded, but wasn’t able to provide information about the data the UCP government relied on to develop its proposed changes.
Rather, press secretary for Tourism and Sport, Kevin Lee, offered a statement saying the provincial government “will work with sporting organizations in the province to ensure biologically born female athletes are able to compete in a biological female-only division without having to compete against transgender female athletes while also expanding co-ed or other gender-neutral divisions for athletic competitions to ensure that transgender athletes are able to meaningfully participate in the sport of their choice.”
In addition, the statement read, “This will just apply to trans women and girls as there are biological realities that give transgender female athletes a competitive advantage over women and girls.”
No evidence was provided by the government spokesperson to back up the claim that transgender female athletes pose a threat to biological women when competing in sports.