Members of the Board of Governors,

On March 2, 2023, the Thistle Class Association Board of Governors (the “Board”) voted to amend the Thistle Class Bylaws to allow transgender women (biological men identifying as women) to compete in Women’s Nationals provided that they “compete as the gender that they identify with in their ‘everyday life.’” Art. XIV, ¶ 17. The Board voted with only ten days’ notice[1] provided to Board Members of the proposed amendment and the Board made no effort to solicit the views or opinions of the class writ large. We, the undersigned Thistle Class members and competitors, oppose this bylaw. We ask the Board to repeal the bylaw and open a dialog with class members to hear all sides of this debate before making a decision.

To begin, we emphasize that we welcome all people, regardless of race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or age, to the Thistle family. Everyone deserves an opportunity to compete in our class and participate in the friendship and camaraderie that make this family so special. We have no ill-will toward any person who supports the bylaw and we welcome an open and honest discussion.

But as should be expected in a diverse and expansive family such as ours, we have a different opinion than the Board regarding the appropriateness of the bylaw. Indeed, even we cannot agree on any one reason for our opposition.

Some of us oppose this bylaw simply because the Board failed to solicit the opinions and perspectives of our fellow members. For us, the issue is the way in which this bylaw came about, with ten days’ notice and no class-wide publicity. We believe the success of our class demands a more collaborative and inclusive approach to deciding such sensitive issues.

Some of us believe that the growing trend of allowing transgender women to compete with biological women threatens to destroy women’s athletics. Biological men, on average, have significant physical advantages over women that are evident in any physical competition. Biological men who go through puberty will retain many of those advantages even if they have fully transitioned as a transgender woman through hormone therapy. We oppose advancing the belief that transgender women are biological women for purposes of competing in women’s sports so that we can preserve the benefits of women’s sports for future generations of biological women.

Some of us are biological women who believe that this bylaw has rejected our unique identity and lived experiences. As biological women, only we can and have experienced the challenges of competing while pregnant or navigating the demands of breast-feeding with long days on the water. Only we can know what it is like to fight through the physical differences between biological men and biological women when competing on the same playing field. This bylaw, by changing the definition of “woman,” threatens to erase our identity.

Some of us have no real position on this matter, we simply want to avoid unnecessarily dividing the Thistle family. We believe that sailing is one of the last places to which we can retreat from the ever increasing and all-consuming culture wars. We oppose this bylaw because we think it unnecessary and divisive.

Some of us believe that there are better ways to address this issue than the bylaw unilaterally adopted by the Board. We are eager to promote a compromise solution that recognizes the views and needs of all members of the Thistle family.

But all of us oppose this bylaw. Accordingly, we will propose a bylaw amendment to reverse the bylaw change and seek further discussion on this issue. We ask the Board to support this amendment, conduct robust and comprehensive listening sessions, and reconsider the best solution to this issue with adequate notice and opportunity for all members of the Thistle family to be heard.

Respectfully,

[1] The Executive Committee may assert that notice was first provided on February 13. This notice, however, noted only the topic of “Inclusivity” and did not specify the potential for this bylaw change.