Another day, another biological male looking to compete in a sport meant for females. This time, it’s the extremely rough collision sport known as Rugby. In America’s Premier Rugby Sevens league, Emma Farnan, a biological male who has had surgery to make him appear female, has been allowed to compete as a member of the Southern Headliners, the defending champions from last year. Farnan also competed as a member of the championship team.
Farnan is being allowed to play even though the sport’s governing body has disallowed former males from competing against females in the sport. Per World Rugby Guidelines, a biological male, even when taking hormone therapy, enjoys “significant increase in body mass,” “increased height,” “greater bone density,” and “increased heart and lung size.”
Farnan did not begin transitioning until he was in college, having gone through puberty as a fully functioning male.
Farnan’s position on the team is listed as a Prop. According to a Wayne State University tutorial on Rugby, the Props “are normally the biggest two players on the team and are used for pushing the scrum. Since props are big, they are not the fastest of the players on the field but will use their size, weight and strength to win the ball on a dead ball set piece called a scrum down. They also have a key role of upper body strength of keeping the scrum up and not having it collapse as it starts to fold over.”
But according to Farnan, neither his size nor his biological maleness has anything to do with his dominance of female Rugby players.
“I feel like a shell of the athlete I used to be,” Farnan told Good Morning America in January. “After taking hormones for a year, two years, I can’t even come close to the level of athleticism that I used to compete with.”
“So often discussion of trans women in sport comes down to assuming that we are able to play at the same level as men, and we just can’t. We are women, and we compete equally as a woman,” Farnan, a Notre Dame doctoral student, has said. “There’s not been a single time with PR Sevens that I walked out, and I felt like I was the strongest or the fastest or the tallest girl on the team.”
But despite the 27-year-old Farnan’s subjective feelings on the subject, he is, in fact, taller and stronger than most of the females in the world.
According to those who watch the sport closely, Farnan’s story is remarkably similar to that of swimmer Lia Thomas, a mediocre male swimmer who began dominating female competitions after deciding to transition.
“Farnan was a mediocre male athlete (sound familiar?) before starting self-iding as a woman. Middle of the pack. Common sense & scientific studies are continuing to show that Farnan does in fact retain performance advantage even after years of testosterone blocking chemicals,” tweeted Women’s Rugby Comp, a European based female Rugby group, back in January.
Women’s Rugby Comp accuses Farnan of holding back from his true abilities in order to cause less of a stir in the Rugby community.
“But that’s the curve ball that Farnan is throwing. He is very carefully making sure he holds back enough that he isn’t out performing too much OR causing injury. He let his female teammate win MVP last year. It’s a calculated and political move, most likely pushing a trans rights agenda,” Women’s Rugby Comp tweeted on Monday. “Trickery at it’s finest. Why no sporting body should ever cave and give that type of control to any trans-identified male in women’s sports. It’s basically an honor system and it’s [100 percent] unethical. Not to mention extremely misogynist.”
It’s more than just unfair, it’s potentially dangerous, especially in a collision sport such as Rugby.
“Letting Farnan play sends an even more dangerous message that women’s rugby is up for grabs to mediocre men to eventually dominate and push women (yes, even elite women) out,” Women’s Rugby Comp stated. “This guy was a college beer drinking dude (at best) before transitioning. He is know [sic] playing against Olympians as a woman and winning championships.”
It’s not simply about biological men ruining women’s rugby or female swimming competitions. This continual blurring of lines when it comes to gender roles in society portends a bleak future where God’s plan has been replaced by the mantra, “if it feels good, do it,” where common sense has been replaced by mob mentality and mob rule, and where right and wrong is determined by focus groups and not morality.
