For the second year running, biological males have dominated the non-binary category of the New York City Marathon, and this year, their physical sporting advantage was awarded a cash prize, meaning equal prize money for men and women competing in the event is now a thing of the past.
The NYC Marathon made the decision to include a non-binary category for the first time in 2021 but didn’t offer any prize money for the winners. This year, however, the non-profit organization New York Road Runners paid out $9,000 to Jacob Caswell who finished in first place.
In response, Mara Yamauchi, a two-time Olympic marathoner, and Robert Johnson, co-founder of LetsRun.com, published an article arguing that gender identity has no place in sport, and that the decision to pay out prize money to the winner of the non-binary category was a mistake and amounts to discrimination against female athletes.
“A non-binary category …introduces something which is irrelevant in sport - belief - as a sports category,” they explain in the article. “Other beliefs, such as religion or political affiliation, are as irrelevant as the belief that one is non-binary.”
“A non-binary category discriminates against females because males run, on average, about ten percent faster than females…So females in the non-binary category are not competing on a level playing field,” the article continues.
The two athletes went on to question what the prize money was rewarding, stating that it clearly wasn’t athletic excellence given that the winner of the non-binary category would have finished in 147th place if competing in the men’s category. The NYRR had intended to pay out $15,000 in prize money but only two non-binary runners managed to finish within the 3:10 cutoff.
“Awards aren’t important to me,” non-binary runner Nick Dill, who came in fourth place, told NBC News in an interview prior to the race. “It’s being able to run as my authentic self…It’s important for us to stand up and be able to participate in sports and do what we want to do.”
“Sex, not gender identity, is the primary determinant as to why males are better than females in sports,” concluded Yamauchi and Johnson. “If the NYRR wants to have a non-binary division in the name of inclusiveness, then that is their right, but it is discrimination against females and goes against the very essence of sport - fair competition in categories that are relevant to sport.”
The article was shared on LetsRun.com and received a significant amount of feedback, with many agreeing that gender identity has no place in sports, while others felt being inclusive was more important than fairness. Johnson posted a statement in the website’s chat forum defending the points made in the article.
In response to numerous people asking why he cared, Johnson responded that the truth matters and there “needs to be a respect for objective scientific facts for society to function.”
“If we are going to have a non-binary category, I say let's go all out in 2023. We might as well have prize money in 2023 for gays, straights, whites, blacks, etc - a bunch of things that have nothing to do with performance,” Johnson concluded.
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