A transgender athlete and personal trainer is suing CrossFit for banning her from competing in the CrossFit Games.
Transgender athlete Chloie Jonsson is suing CrossFit for $2.5 million in damages for not allowing her to compete in the CrossFit Games as a woman.
Chloie Jonsson charges the CrossFit company with discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress and unfair competition in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Santa Cruz, California.
Jonsson says the state of California recognizes her as a woman and the fitness company should as well.
“The fundamental, ineluctable fact is that a male competitor who has a sex reassignment procedure still has a genetic makeup that confers a physical and physiological advantage over women,” CrossFit’s attorney wrote in a letter to Jonsson in September.
However, according to the lawsuit, Jonsson — who has identified herself as a female since her teenage years — had sexual reassignment surgery in 2006 and has been on female hormone therapy. “[Jonnson] doesn’t have an advantage over other women. She’s been on estrogen for such a long time,” her attorney, Waukeen McCoy, told CNN.
“She’s female,” McCoy said of Johnson. “She’s legally female. A corporation like CrossFit, they’re doing business in California. The law precludes from discrimination on gender identity.”
The lawsuit also alleges that CrossFit’s policy requiring individuals to compete in a their original birth gender would require transgender athletes to reveal their personal histories. In essence, that they’d have to “out” themselves, even if they sought personal privacy.
Jonsson seeks a reversal in the competition’s policies for both herself and “for the good for all transgendered people and athletes.”
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