Recently, a transgender athlete, Chloie Jonsson filed a $2.5 million against CrossFit for violating her civil rights. According to the lawsuit, CrossFit refused to allow Jonsson to compete in the women’s division of the CrossFit Games Open despite the fact that she had gender reassignment surgery in 2006 and is legally recognized as a woman by the state of California.

CrossFit Headquarters is arguing that Chloie Jonsson was born a man and therefore possesses a genetic advantage over the women she hopes to compete against. In addition to this misguided argument, lawyers for CrossFit HQ stated that "this is simply wrong as a matter of human biology and if you can't see that, there really isn't much to talk about,"

The reality is that there is no evidence that transgender women who have been on hormone replacement therapy for a significant amount of time would have any physical, athletic advantage over their cisgender counterparts. CrossFit HQ is using outdated information and a poor understanding of the human body to reinforce their discrimination against transgender athletes.

Other large athletic organizations should act as an example to CrossFit HQ for how to best approach this issue:

• In 2004 the International Olympic Committee ruled that a transgender athlete who has completed sex reassignment surgery followed by two years of testosterone suppression therapy (for an athlete going from male to female) or testosterone supplementation (for an athlete going from female to male) would be allowed to compete.

• In 2009, the NCAA ruled that athletes need only one year of testosterone suppression to compete against women.

We, the CrossFit athletes of Solcana CrossFit and other affiliate gyms, urge CrossFit HQ to reconsider their policies around transgender athletes. We request that CrossFit HQ create a policy to better match the policies in place by the NCAA and IOC. 

In addition, we petition CrossFit HQ to make a statement of apology to transgender athletes in our community regarding the archaic and hateful commentary they have made throughout the course of this recent lawsuit.

We want to make the CrossFit community even stronger than it is by demonstrating that we are accepting of all athletes no matter their gender identity or expression. CrossFit HQ has been encouraging and inclusive of athletes across the world. They have publicly shown support for athletes from many marginalized communities, and it is time now to include the trans community in this effort.