Trans-Identifying Woman To Compete Against Fellow Women In Olympic Ski Event

Some LGBT advocates and media have celebrated the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the Winter Olympics as a “major milestone in trans sports.”

Elis Lundholm, a woman who identifies as a transgender man, will compete for Sweden at the Milan-Cortina Olympics as part of the ski team. But here’s the interesting part: Lundholm will take part in the women’s category, not the men’s. 

 

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The skier began identifying as a transgender man five years ago and told the Swedish outlet Sportbladet that she “has never had a problem competing as a woman.” 

Social media users pointed out the implications of Lundholm remaining in the women’s category, which is based on biological sex under current rules.

“Lundholm is female, identifies as trans, uses he/him pronouns and has not gone through medical transition, competes in the female category,” British professor Jon Pike posted on X.

“Lundholm is a walking/skiing refutation of the claim that it’s unreasonable to require TiM [Transgender identifying Male] athletes to compete in their sex category,” he said. “It’s said that this is the equivalent of ‘banning them from sport.’ Lundholm competes in the correct sex category, even though this is not the category into which Lundholm identifies, and has ‘no problem with this.’”

Most social media commenters didn’t have an issue with Lundholm competing with other women, noting how the only thing that could make competition unfair is if she had been using testosterone.

Last summer, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee changed its policy to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning men from competing against women, as The Daily Wire previously reported. The committee posted an update stating that it would “…ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment,” consistent with the executive order.

This change followed years of controversy in the world of sports. 

In the 2024 Summer Games, Imane Khelif of Algeria, a boxer who had failed gender tests, dominated the women’s welterweight division and won the gold medal. Khelif’s success in Paris drew outrage across the globe. 

In 2021, trans-identifying man Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand competed against women in weightlifting in the Tokyo Games. Chelsea Wolfe, a man who identifies as a woman, was also at the Tokyo Olympics as a reserve cyclist for the U.S. women’s BMX Freestyle team.