Doriane Coleman is a Swiss American law professor and anti-transgender activist.
Coleman is a sex segregationist whose primary concern is maintaining segregationism that keeps women and girls in inferior roles in society. Of particular interest is maintaining women’s subordinate place via sex-segregated competitive sport, primarily by attacking transgender athletes.
Background
Doriane A. Lambelet was born on March 5, 1961 and is married to James Coleman (born 1949).
In nearly all autobiographical material, Coleman mentions being mixed race and raised in a single-parent household. After attending Villanova University on a track scholarship, Coleman transferred to Cornell, earning a bachelor’s degree. Coleman continued to compete after college as a Swiss athlete. Coleman earned a law degree from Georgetown in 1988.
Coleman was a track and field athlete. As an 800m runner, Coleman became the U.S. National Collegiate Indoor Champion in 1982, and the Swiss National Champion in 1982 and 1983.
Coleman is a Professor of Law at Duke Law School.
Anti-transgender activism
Coleman and Martina Navratilova co-founded the anti-trans organization Women’s Sports Policy Working Group.
Coleman has testified against trans athletes in sex-segregated competitive sports:
Those of us who are athletes know that separation on the basis of sex is necessary to achieve equality in this space. Among scientific experts, it is accepted beyond dispute that males and females are materially different with respect to the main physical attributes that contribute to athletic performance. They agree that the primary reason for sex differences in these attributes is exposure in gonadal males to much higher levels of testosterone during growth and development and throughout the athletic career.
This literally builds the male body in the respects that matter for sport. The first figure in my statement shows what we mean by much higher levels of testosterone. The second demonstrates how sex differences in athletic performance emerge coinciding with the onset of puberty, and the third illustrates the effects of those differences, again starting in adolescence.
The third marks the individual lifetime bests of three female Olympic champions in the 400 meters, including Team USA’s Sanya Richards-Ross and Allyson Felix in the sea of male body performances run in a single year, 2017. It shows that the very best women in the world would lose to literally thousands of boys and men, including to thousands who would be considered second tier in the men’s category.
And because it only takes three male-bodied athletes to preclude the best females from the medal stand, it doesn’t matter if only a handful turn out to be gender nonconforming.
Coleman (2019)
Coleman has also published anti-trans opinion pieces with Martina Navratilova in the Washington Post and Quillette.
References
Coleman, Doriane; Navratilova, Martina; Richards-Ross, Sanya (April 29, 2019). Opinion: Pass the Equality Act, but don’t abandon Title IX. Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pass-the-equality-act-but-dont-abandon-title-ix/2019/04/29/2dae7e58-65ed-11e9-a1b6-b29b90efa879_story.html?noredirect=on
Coleman, Doriane (May 3, 2019). A Victory for Female Athletes Everywhere. Quillette https://quillette.com/2019/05/03/a-victory-for-female-athletes-everywhere/
Coleman, Doriane; Navratilova, Martina (November 29, 2021). On the Issue of Female Athletics, the IOC Has Shirked Its Duty to Lead. Quillette https://quillette.com/2021/11/29/on-the-issue-of-female-athletics-the-ioc-has-shirked-its-duty-to-lead/
Coleman, Doriane Lambelet (May 15, 2019). Viewpoint: What defines a female athlete? Law professor, former runner’s case for why Caster Semenya’s testosterone levels critical in determining if she should compete with women. genetic Literacy Project https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2019/05/15/what-defines-a-female-athlete-law-professor-and-former-runners-case-for-why-caster-semenyas-testosterone-levels-are-critical-in-determining-if-she-should-compete-with-other-women/
Resources
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)