Yale senior Iszac Henig, a transgender man, is spending the 2022-23 NCAA season on the men’s swimming team.
Henig raced on the Yale women’s team during the 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2021-22 NCAA seasons. He came out as transgender in April 2021 and initially opted to swim for the women’s team—he was eligible to do so because he had not taken testosterone-based hormone therapy at the time. However, he felt that being a man on the women’s team was “extremely difficult to navigate”.
“The “let’s go, ladies!” cheers, the sign saying ‘WOMEN’ as I entered the locker room, a slipped pronoun here and there and the itching wrongness of the women’s swimsuit I wore to race: They added up,” Henig said in a New York Times op-ed. “The Yale women swimmers are some of my best friends, but being on the team with them made explicit all of the ways I am not a woman.
“My mental health began to worsen again, and after a few months I confessed to a friend, ‘I don’t know if I can do this anymore.’ We hadn’t even had our first official meet yet. I came to understand that I didn’t belong on the women’s team. And I craved a space where I did belong.”
At some point during his junior year, the 2021-22 NCAA season, Henig decided that he would spend his senior year on the men’s team. That 2021-22 NCAA season was also his most successful one—he finished 5th in the 100 free and 15th in the 50 free at women’s NCAAs to earn All-American honors. Times-wise, he dropped from a PB of 22.59 to 21.93 in the 50 free and from 48.90 to 47.52 in the 100 free.
Henig credits his success last season to knowing he would be swimming with the men next season and spending more time with the men’s team, which includes lifting weights with them. “The more time I spent with the guys, the more I realized how much better I felt in men’s spaces,” he said.
As of January 2023, Henig has been on testosterone-based hormone therapy for eight months. He most recently swam at the 2022 Ohio State Invite, where he was 79th in the 50 free (22.07), 73rd in the 100 free (47.94), and 69th in the 200 free (1:45.86). Those times are slightly slower than his personal bests while swimming for the women’s team.
“I wasn’t the slowest guy in any of my events, but I’m not as successful in the sport as I was on the women’s team,” Henig said. “Instead, I’m trying to connect with my teammates in new ways, to cheer loudly, to focus more on the excitement of the sport. Competing and being challenged is the best part. It’s a different kind of fulfillment. And it’s pretty great to feel comfortable in the locker room every day.”
Henig isn’t the only openly trans Ivy League swimmer to change teams mid-career. Schuyler Bailar, the first openly trans NCAA swimmer, initially committed to swim on Harvard’s women’s team but then decided to compete for the men. More recently, former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas swam for three seasons on the men’s team before competing on the women’s team for the 2021-22 NCAA season. That season, she won the NCAA title in the 500 free, becoming the first openly trans swimmer to win a national championship.
“Many people have reservations or even strong resistance to the participation of trans athletes in sports, particularly on women’s teams. I can understand why some people might worry about fairness or equality. But what seems to be missing from that conversation is our humanity,” Henig said. “It might not seem like such a big deal to swim on a team that doesn’t align with your true self. But think about how overwhelming it would be to spend 20 hours a week in a place where you feel you don’t belong. Eventually, for me, that reality made it hard to get out of bed to go to practice.
“All athletes should be able to be their whole, authentic selves among their teammates and be able to play their sports without fear of discrimination,” he added. “I’ve been fortunate to receive so much support from my communities, especially from fellow trans athletes. I’m honored to be part of a group strong enough to withstand all of the undue attacks on our participation and personhood. Living in authenticity makes me a stronger, better man. Being trans is one of the least interesting things about me.
“Feeling congruent with my team has opened my eyes even further to how powerful athletic communities can be and how important it is for everyone to have the chance to feel that.”
Read Henig’s full op-ed on the New York Times website here.
Curious if a cis-male walk on would find a spot on elite college teams with those times. What’s the reaction going to be when a trans-male is rejected on the men’s team because they can’t compete at that level?
I wouldn’t consider Yale to be “elite” by college swimming standards, so the question should be whether a cis-male walk-on would find a spot on the Yale team with those times. My guess is that the athlete would not receive admissions support from the coach (i.e. help getting admitted to the school). On the other hand, you could argue that a trans male who has only been on hormone therapy for eight months has more upside potential. For example, Schuyler Bailar was a 1:00 breaststroker as a high school girl, and got down to 56.xx as a senior on the Harvard men’s team.
If a school holds tryouts for walk-ons, and a trans male athlete is given a spot on… Read more »
I wasn’t trying to make a case for or against Henig or suggesting Yale is an elite swimming program. And I do agree that being a positive part of the female team for three years and part of the Yale swimming “family” should be considered in allowing a spot on the men’s team in this situation. I was just wondering what happens when a Cal or Texas caliber team has a situation where a trans-male’s times are borderline at best. They will be in a no win situation. If they don’t accept the trans-male, the PR backlash will be furious. If they do accept them over faster cis-males, then possible Title IX violations or other problems. Just something else to… Read more »
This just doesn’t seem like a huge issue to me. I think there are a lot of schools that allow for a slightly larger roster, with walk-ons who don’t necessarily travel to all of the meets, provided that they are committed to the time commitment and training.
It’s not a direct comparison, but over the years there have been a number of paralympic athletes on D1 teams, despite not being 100% competitive with their teammates who don’t have physical disabilities.
What I found interesting about NYT essay is that Henig, though thoughtful and eloquent, didn’t address the huge disparity in the reaction to his choice vs Thomas’ choice. For the former, most could care less whereas for the latter many were upset. While trans activists were quick to characterize anyone who opposed biological men competing against women as bigots, perhaps Riley Barker et al were simply concerned about physical fairness.
This is such a charged issue for so many people, it’s really hard to speak to folks (on either side) in a way that isn’t emotionally charged.
I appreciate the issue of competitive fairness, when you have male-to-female trans people (“trans women”) competing in women’s events. Folks like Lia Thomas have a physical advantage over cis-gender women, and the NCAA rules need to evolve to address this issue.
At the same time, trans people are incredibly marginalized by society, and collegiate sports serve a purpose in building communities on campus, educating young people to be productive citizens, and so much more. When you take out the “competitive fairness” piece (which has largely been a non-issue for trans men like Henig,… Read more »
No idea why you’re getting downvoted. Well said.
The people whose comments get deleted – rightfully, I might add, these comment sections have been shockingly well moderated – can still slam the downvote button.
Similar comments on the old Thomas posts used to have ratios similar to that – 47 to 33 as the time of this comment – but once the post in general got shared…to wherever the non-swimfan, anti-trans zealots hang out, they’d flip to like 50 to 200 or something. Happened almost every time.
I’ll be honest, I think there are two groups of people arguing the “competitive fairness” side of things. They are coming from very different places, but unfortunately they end up sounding sort of similar.
Folks who understand and appreciate the importance of inclusivity, want to have a discussion about competitive fairness that leads to practical solutions, but don’t know what language to use, so they end up accidentally offending (e.g., by calling trans women “biological men”).
The far-right Fox news crowd, who are really opposed to trans rights and inclusion, and see trans women participating in women’s sports as an opportunity to push back on trans rights in general.
One cannot know for sure what Riley (Gaines) Barker’s intentions are,… Read more »
First there was Lia Thomas winning the 500 free, and now we have Iszac Hening trying his best. I can’t see this going any other way other than to further accelerate what FINA has done already about trans athletes and women’s competitions in their new 2022 regulations. Yes, NCAA isn’t FINA, but there will eventually be some kind of alignment — and some folk will not be in the pool competing afterwards, I suspect.
I have no problems with this. But male puberty is the issue in MTF transitions.
It may well be explained in the NYT article but how does taking hormones fit with the drug testing regime?
Synthetic testosterone is a hell of a drug, just ask Floyd Landis.
Through the magic of TUEs.
Here’s the full document and physician guidelines if you’re curious:
https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/tuec_transgender_version1.0.pdf
My guess is that this will remain in place until a transgender man wins something or qualifies for something significant, and then will be revisited and reviewed.
Ah thanks, that makes sense.
I dumbly think of TUEs as a way to get a sneaky inhaler like Team Sky but obviously no reason in principle they couldn’t apply equally to classic PEDs. Maybe a doctor will be found who really believes in EPO and nandrolone for transitioning…
Interesting possibility. Whilst it’s unlikely in swimming, in sports like gymnastics a trans man competing at the highest level with the help of products completely off limits to his competitors doesn’t seem far fetched (are there any male gymnasts better than Biles on floor even without drugs?).
TUEs aren’t a carte blanche freeway for doctors to write prescriptions for anything they want. There are still policies and guardrails in place, because everyone already thought of the scenario you posited in the first paragraph.
https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/international_standard_istue_-_2020.pdf
TUEs can be abused in the way you described, getting fishy prescriptions, but in lots of cases, those are more marginal (though not non-existent) advantages, and happen for conditions that have more vague pathiologies or symptoms. Adderall, for example. There’s probably not a modern human under the age of 40 who couldn’t justify a prescription for Adderall to international doping authorities if they needed to.
Your second paragraph brings up an interesting point. In swimming, everyone has… Read more »
Speaking of cases where being small is an obvious advantage: I believe that women have always been allowed to be coxswains on mens’ NCAA rowing teams. I’m not sure how this is justified, given that women are (on average) significantly smaller than men. Doesn’t it take away opportunities from aspiring male coxswains?
That’s a great example.
Though, there is no NCAA men’s rowing…
Oh fascinating! I definitely went to a college with a varsity men’s rowing team, but you are right. Apparently men’s rowing declined to join the NCAA, and is instead organized under the “Intercollegiate Rowing Association,” while women’s rowing is under the NCAA. You learn something every day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_rowing_in_the_United_States#Men's_rowing
I want to be real life friends with Master Swammer. Your comments here have been really thoughtful and kind.
Men’s and women’s gymnastics are essentially completely different sports in ways that make transitioning from one to the other at the elite level unlikely. In men’s floor, points are earned through tumbling and strength/balance elements. There’s no music and no artistic requirements except that men aren’t allowed to take a single plain step during the routine. In women’s floor, points are earned through tumbling, turns, and leaps/jumps that require a 180 degree split in the air. Routines are set to music and there are significant artistic deductions based on dance, movement, and musical interpretation.
In addition, the deductions and requirements for tumbling are different and the same elements are defined differently in men’s and women’s gymnastics. As one example,… Read more »
I’ve asked this before and never gotten a good answer: If a trans man (FTM) is granted a TUE for testosterone to treat gender dystopia, can they compete in the women’s division as long as their testosterone level remains below the legal limit for women?
Specifically, according to one source, the average testosterone level for adult females ranges from 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L, but the legal limit for competition in sports like track and swimming is 5.0 nmol/L (recently lowered from 10 nmol/L). So, can a trans man with a TUE take enough synthetic testosterone to increase their level to just below 5.0 nmol/L, and still compete in the women’s division?