Canoe groups must decide gender issues
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
Rule-makers for the traditional Hawaiian sport of outrigger canoe racing have decided to leave it up to each island's racing association to answer the nontraditional question of who is really a woman.
Advertiser library photo • Feb. 8, 2000
The Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association, which sanctions state races and faces separate and unresolved discrimination complaints from two paddlers who were born as men but paddle as women, has adopted a rule that bases gender verification on either a birth certificate or some other form of identification, to be determined by each island's association.
Tammy Wronski, 41, has been cleared to compete as a woman in summer outrigger canoe races.
The new rule means Tammy Wronski, 41, who completed a male-to-female sex change in January and has a birth certificate that lists her as female, is legal to paddle as a woman in the summer sport that involves 7,000 paddlers in 64 clubs across the islands.
Li Anne Taft, 48, who lives as a woman and whose state identification lists no gender, is still paddling as a woman but is waiting for the rules to be clarified.
The ruling brings the Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association one step closer to resolving a dispute with the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai'i, which represents Wronski, ACLU Legal Director Brent White said.
The ACLU's primary goal was to take away the threat of genetic testing when it comes to verifying gender in sports, White said.
The ACLU continues to monitor the organization running the Sept. 23 Na Wahine O Ke Kai season-ending competition, a 41-mile women's Moloka'i-to-O'ahu race across the Kaiwi Channel, considered the biggest Hawai'i canoe race of the season, White said.
The ACLU would take legal action if genetic testing is required to qualify for the Sept. 23 competition, White said.
Na Wahine O Ke Kai, which has its own race rules, has pushed for genetic testing to verify gender and barred Wronski and Taft from last year's race. Officials did not immediately respond to The Advertiser's inquiry about this year's rules.
"I've made reservations there, but until I hear from the civil rights commission, I'll remain skeptical," Taft said. Taft first took complaints to the Hawai'i Civil Rights Commission in January 1999, focusing on the validity of how the HCRC defines gender and whether a nonprofit educational organization can alter rules to limit participation. The civil rights commission does not comment on ongoing investigations and has not come to a conclusion.
Advertiser library photo • Dec. 1999
The ACLU joined the fight last year when Wronski, who was openly battling AIDS and was in the process of a complete sex change, challenged rules that said she had to undergo DNA testing to compete in the Moloka'i-to-O'ahu race.
Li Anne Taft, 48, paddles as a woman in outrigger canoeing, but is waiting for a clarification of gender rules.
No one has officially challenged Wronski and Taft, and their canoe clubs remain supportive.
But Wronski and Taft themselves remain divided over whether sex-change surgery is a deciding factor in the definition of a woman, and they are so philosophically opposed that they don't even speak.
Wronski, who considers herself "more of a woman," says she wants more stringent gender guidelines that require hormone testing for athletes in women's sports.
"It's not just like anyone can get their name changed and paddle for their team," Wronski said. "I'm fighting for the principle that Renee Richards had 25 years ago."
Richards, once known as Richard Raskind, had a sex change in 1976 that launched a battle with the Women's Tennis Association. The fight reached the New York Supreme Court, which allowed Richards to compete as a woman in the 1977 U.S. Open.
Taft, who began taking female hormones in 1995 and racing on a women's team in 1996, sees the issue as one more about greater tolerance in the land of aloha than about sex-change operations or hormones proving sexual identity.
Although statistics don't exist on how many transgendered women are active in sports in Hawai'i, transgender advocates estimate one or two for every 350 female athletes. Wronski and Taft are the only two Hawai'i paddlers open about their gender-bending situations.
Other participants have never officially accused Wronski or Taft of being men masquerading as women to gain physical advantage in women's sports, but both live in constant fear of that scenario. Taft carries three doctors' notes. Wronski carries a birth certificate to prove she's no imposter.
Michael Tongg, president of the HCRC, sees no basis for verification other than what is provided in the rules. Upon protest, the racing association now says a birth certificate or other form of identification will be sufficient to establish gender.
Taft, however, is not convinced that this is really a resolution and says the umbrella racing association is passing the buck to individual island associations that might still try to exclude paddlers.
Staff writer Tanya Bricking can be reached at 525-8026 or by e-mail: tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com.
