ADAMSON University’s Trisha Tubu has caught my attention. Before that, however, a transparency declaration first. I am an alumnus of the Adamson University (Boys) High School. Former Senate hopeful and environmental leader Roy Cabonegro was our class valedictorian and my classmate from second year until we graduated together in 1991.

Tubu’s gender has come increasingly under scrutiny, both in social media and even in mainstream media circles. Let me be up front about my ignorance of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines’s (UAAP) rules regarding gender.

However, I do know that tournaments for men’s and women’s sports are separate, which means that gender is a relevant issue.

What are the UAAP’s pertinent rules on gender? I certainly have no idea what is the UAAP’s basis for identifying gender; is it gender identification or biological sex assignment?

Here is what Britannica has to say about gender identity:

“An individual’s self-conception as a man or woman or as a boy or girl or as some combination of man/boy and woman/ girl or as someone fluctuating between man/boy and woman/ girl or as someone outside those categories altogether. It is distinguished from actual biological sex — i.e., male or female… Some individuals … experience little or no connection between sex and gender; among transgender persons, for example, biological sexual characteristics are distinct and unambiguous, but the affected person identifies with the gender conventionally associated with the opposite sex.”

Britannica is hardly the expert on gender identity but the message is clear: biological sex is one thing and gender identity is another. Gender identity is much more complicated than the simplistic assignment of sex based on the biological aspect.

Thus, what are the UAAP’s rules in establishing manhood in men’s sports, and womanhood in women’s sports? Is it based on biological sex assignment or gender identity? How are these enforced?

If gender identity is the basis, have the members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA+) community in UAAP sports been adequately informed about this? There are so many openly lesbian athletes competing in UAAP women’s sports and gays who are in men’s sports. Do they know that they can compete in men’s or women’s sports in the UAAP based on how they identify themselves, if that is indeed the basis?

However, if the basis is biological sex assignment, is there a mechanism that the UAAP utilizes to identify the biological sex of someone like Tubu who is being questioned now in social media and mainstream media?

As an Adamson alumnus —although the university’s regulations may have changed since I graduated — I can attest that I never underwent any kind of physical examination or related test to determine my biological sex. The university just took it by faith based on other documents that declared me a boy.

As we have seen in the infamous case of Nancy Navalta, she was found to have both male and female organs — she was a hermaphrodite. At birth she was determined to have been female based on the more pronounced visibility of her female organs. A later test in her adulthood — after her biological sex was questioned — showed she also possessed male organs.

I suppose that the same happened to me: I was determined a male at birth because of my visible male organs. Yet, I doubt if any other tests were conducted apart from the visual to determine the biological sex of Navalta and 110 million other Filipinos.

Could mistakes be possible in the biological sex identification of people based on cursory visual determination at birth? As the Navalta situation proved, hermaphrodism is a real possibility. What is the UAAP rule on hermaphroditism?

Tubu should always be referred to as “she” or “her” because we should move forward, not backwards, on gender identity. However, is that the current basis of the UAAP’s rules on the gendering of sporting events? If so, there are dozens of athletes that are missing out and the situation desperately calls for rectification.

If biological sex assignment is the basis, based on the Navalta incident, Tubu needs to undergo an examination to prove her biological sex and vindicate her from the vitriol of critics once and for all.

Decidedly, this is not about how Tubu identifies herself.

It is about upholding and promoting fairness in the context of the rules governing sporting competitions in the UAAP. Sportsmanship is first and foremost about fairness. A rules-based regime remains the best setup to promote fairness in sports.

The UAAP should act on this controversy motu propio and save everyone from the gnawing doubt that festers especially among the sports fans, victimizing either Tubu (as the subject of speculation and vitriol) or the members of the LGBTQIA+ community inside UAAP sports who are deprived of gender identity as the basis of the gendered division in sporting competitions.