“Many children and adolescents are inspired by me and believe they can shine again, to have a place in the Sun. Because trans people go out of school very early by transphobia. They have no space in the job market. They have no visibility. And today, with each passing day, more trans people have this visibility.”
Shortly after becoming the first champion of the Women’s Volleyball Superleague with Osasco, Tifanny Abreu was thrilled to address the difficulties faced by trans people in sports and society, especially in Brazil.
According to a report from Antra (National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals), Brazil is the country that kills the most trans and transvestites in the world – 122 murders last year, keeping the country in the lead of the ranking for the 16th year in a row.
At 40, the tip has made the gender transition about a decade ago and started the trajectory in the female category in mid -2017, acting by Golem Palmi of the Italian second division.
At the end of the same year, he made his debut in the women’s Superleague for the Bauru team, living with a series of questions by athletes from other teams, who saw in their presence in an unfair advantage and risk of loss of space for women cis in sports.
At the time, it was backed by determination of the COI (International Olympic Committee) that allowed the presence of trans athletes less than 10 NMOL/L (nanomoles per liter) of blood testosterone.
In 2021, the International Federation (FIVB), following the new guideline of the IOC, delegated to each national confederation to adopt its own criterion. The CBV (Brazilian Volleyball Confederation) then announced testosterone limit below 5 NMOL/L (nanomoles per liter), based on recommendation from FINS (International Federation of Sports Medicine). Tifanny’s usually oscillates around 0.2 nmol/L.
“I will continue my fight,” Tifanny told SporTV on the court at the Ibirapuera Gymnasium in Sao Paulo.
Victories of athletes trans brought of hardening rules
The success of the volleyball player still represents the exception than the rule regarding the acceptance of trans athletes in the female category.
Wins in other modalities have already been used as a pretext for more restrictive rules to be adopted.
This is what happened in swimming, after Lia Thomas’s triumph in competition at NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), in 2022, and in cycling, after Austin Killips won a proof organized by UCI, the International Cycling Federation in 2023.
As a consequence, the World Aquatics (International Swimming Federation) and UCI practically vetoed the participation of the Trans, establishing as an eligibility criterion that they had not been under male puberty, which usually occurs around 12 years.
Lia Thomas came to appeal at CAS (Arbitral Sports Tribunal), but had the appeal denied.
“CAS’s decision is deeply disappointing,” said the swimmer at the time. “Generalized prohibitions that prevent trans women from competing are discriminatory and deprives us of valuable athletic opportunities that are central to our identities.”
In addition to being banned from competing among women, athletes have also become the target of a series of attacks on social networks.
“The Transgender Cyclist Austin Killips has won the women’s race and caused indignation-this will happen increasingly. The female sport is not the place for male athletes who identify themselves as trans,” wrote former tennis player Martina Navratilova, one of the main voices against the participation of trans women in women’s competitions.
Transient of trans man is very different, says Tesnista
While transgender women athletes face resistance because of their choice, in the case of trans men, reality proves to be quite different.
“Fortunately, I have not lived any episode of prejudice. In general, the experience of trans men is very different from trans women. It does not compare itself from afar,” said Luca Kumahara, a tableist table with three participations in Olympics and Medalist in Pan American games in the women’s category, before making the gender transition in mid-2023.
“Trans man does not generate controversy, no one argues. This is because, in the case of trans man, his chance is to perform worse than the CIS man, so no one is bothering,” said Rogério Friedman, an endocrinologist physician at the Faculty of Medicine of UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) and ABCD (Brazilian Authority for Doping Control Authority).
According to the tennist table, the biggest difficulty faced during the process was to make the decision when starting hormonal treatment.
“Having to choose between focusing on the professional, thinking of goals, results and career, or staff, being socially recognized by who I really am, was a big challenge, because one would make me give up the other.”
He says that in the early months after starting the transition, “it seemed to be easier to play, as if he had to make less effort to have the same power in the blows.”
With increasing strength and physical load at the gym, however, the first body aches came. “These pains ended up breaking my training pace and I started to demotivate.”
The way out was to change the form of training and adopt a “different focus”, returning, from then on, to practice the basic foundations of the sport, assuming the restart in the sport. It also helped body alignment work along with your masseuse.
“The conclusion so far of this process is that I should have controlled the increase in bodybuilding much more and trained more the base, to gradually feel the changes of the body.”
