Victor Martinez shares his thoughts of transgender athletes competing in their new identity.
Transgender athletes competing in sports has become more and more of a controversial issue as federations and leagues try and update their rules to be inclusive – while also maintaining fairness and integrity of the sport. This hit closer to the bodybuilding world recently with powerlifting allowing transgender athletes to compete in their new gender identity. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Victor Martinez shares his thoughts about transgender athletes and if it creates an unfair advantage amongst players.
The unfortunate truth about change is that the transition is almost always slow and rocky. Things that seem different or new are often reacted to with defensiveness and in certain cases complete hatred and anger. As the push for equality of transgender people continues to grow with each passing year, the issue has moved into the realm of sports. Athletes that were once outwardly presenting as one gender have now transitioned into a new gender that they identify with. So this begs the question – which gender category should they compete in when it comes to professional sports?
This is the question that various leagues have been trying to answer. With some pushing for athletes to compete in whichever gender they identify with and others ignoring the issue entirely. It’s a delicate ground to walk on as both individual human rights need to be considered as well as the fairness of the sport. Do men who transition into women have an unfair advantage and vice versa?
Victor Martinez believes that while each person should be allowed to live their life as they choose – when it comes to professional sports and maintaining integrity in the fairness of competition, he finds a problem with transgender athletes potentially having an advantage.
He goes on to say that he thinks the leagues that do allow for transgender athletes to switch categories are simply doing it for a quick bump in PR and are not really pushing for big change on the long term.
You can check out Victor’s entire take on this growing issue in our latest GI Exclusive interview clip above!
