Excluding Trans Women From Women’s Sports is Transphobic

Politics
Written by Sonny Oram

Yeah, I said it. If you believe that trans women don’t belong in women’s sports, you are transphobic, full stop.

Women’s sports are for all women:

  • Short women

  • Tall women

  • BIPOC women

  • White women

  • Cis women

  • Trans women

Everyone has their own advantages and disadvantages. Excluding trans women because of perceived advantages over cisgender athletes is just targeting them because they are trans.

Can you imagine if women over 6 feet weren’t allowed to play basketball because it was “unfair”? Should children of wealthy parents be excluded because they got access to the best coaches? What about athletes who hit puberty early and built muscle faster than their peers?

I’m so tired of this debate and people obsessing over testosterone levels.

Targeting trans people by denying our access to public life whether through employment, bathroom access, or sports, is dehumanizing, degrading, and evil.

If you don’t want to play sports with a trans person then go start your own league.

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Sonny Oram

Boston-based multidisciplinary artist Sonny Oram is the founder of Qwear, a leading voice in the queer fashion movement for more than 15 years, and the author of the foreword to Queer and Trans Fashion Brands: Resistance and Revolution in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025). His work has been featured in HuffPost, BuzzFeed, Design*Sponge, and QTYPE Magazine and he's spoken on panels at MIT, South by Southwest, and Simmons Nursing School.

His earliest published work was created at age ten: a series of collages made from cut-up magazines, accompanied by original text exploring themes of gender, cultural conditioning, predatory advertising, and media objectification. In 2025, images of these collages were published in Queer and Trans Fashion Brands: Resistance and Revolution (Bloomsbury Press) and the Fashion, Style & Popular Culture journal.

Through Qwear, Sonny has launched influential campaigns, including the award-winning #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike with Yasmin Benoit, and continues to create spaces for underrepresented communities across internet and print media. He has also used search engine optimization (SEO) to increase the visibility and diversity of queer representation in online search results, helping terms such as “androgynous style,” “bisexual style,” and “asexual” reflect a broader range of identities and experiences.

https://sonnyoram.com
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