Sent 1/15/25 to [email protected]
To Whom it May Concern,
The 2025 CrossFit Games Rulebook, released on January 10th, was the topic of discussion in our Leadership Meeting on Monday, January 13th. I sit at the head of the table in that space and I was anxious to talk through the details of how to support our community members of all levels through another season of the Open. The Open has always been a thrilling and important time inside the walls of Green Mountain CrossFit. We do our best to make the space for any athlete to test their Fitness using the workouts that are set forth by CrossFit HQ. We have individuals take the judges course so that at any time inside the submission window, we are on call to properly collect scores for an individual athlete. For each week of the Open, we set up a competition environment, specifically for groups of our athletes to be in the spotlight, in the coined “Friday Night Lights” fashion. We’ve had several individual athletes progress through the stages of the CrossFit Games season, so naturally, I was assuming the majority of our conversation would be around dates and logistics.
This was not the case.
The first and the only thing that was discussed was Section 9 of the 2025 CrossFit Games Rulebook:
This was a really important topic for us to discuss before moving forward with anything related to the 2025 CrossFit Games. The implementation of this policy is a pretty strong deterrent for Green Mountain CrossFit’s promotion of and participation in the 2025 CrossFit Open.
While I understand the challenges of creating policies that serve the diverse CrossFit community, this change seems to blatantly undermine the progress made towards inclusivity. Allowing transgender athletes to compete according to their identified gender was an important step that was taken back in 2019, promoting acceptance and diversity in our sport. In fact, I believe the quote reads,
“…transgender athletes are welcome to participate in the division with which they identify. This is the right thing to do. CrossFit believes in the potential, capacity, and dignity of every athlete.”
The policy, as written today, will alienate a segment of our athletes who currently feel welcomed and supported. This policy creates an unnecessary barrier for our transgender athletes and perpetuates a sense of exclusion that runs completely contrary to the values of Green Mountain CrossFit.
We came to love CrossFit in part because of the brand’s inclusive approach to learning — our CrossFit-certified coaches have been taught how to work with anyone, regardless of their background or ability level, to provide an effective and valuable fitness experience that makes them feel accomplished and strong. That is a guiding principle that extends fully across the educational space in functional fitness. It’s unfortunate and extremely disappointing that CrossFit does not recognize that its stated rules, which bar transgender athletes from competition, are antithetical to this approach — the very approach which forms the foundation of its entire business and speaks most directly to its captive audience.
Banning athletes from competing under their identified gender is the opposite of inclusivity; it is exclusion. As an affiliate, it is impossible for us to say we welcome all athletes when this policy is in place, because we have to tell some athletes that everyone can compete as who they are — except for you.
We can certainly hope that the leadership team of CrossFit HQ decides to revisit this decision and consider the voices of affiliate owners, athletes and community members who feel adversely affected by this change. If not, Green Mountain CrossFit will seek a better way to test our Fitness together.
Fortunately for us, I am still just as anxious to dive into the logistics of this year’s test of Fitness for Green Mountain CrossFit athletes. I know our Leadership Team is stoked as well to continue our mission to foster an environment that supports the growth and development of every single one of our athletes.
In the weeks and months ahead, I anticipate we will be having some good conversations with our team, our staff, our athletes and our community around the difference between utilizing a training methodology that develops an individual’s work capacity across broad time and modal domains and actually financially affiliating ourselves with an organization that lacks our same values. We can certainly do one without the other. We’ve done it successfully before.
Everyday Stronger,
Cady
