NSB Logo Kristen Worley Kristen Worley

Kristen Worley

Speaker Exclusive

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Diversity Policy Development Adviser & High-Performance Cyclist

Kristen Worley confronted the world of sport and human rights at it’s highest level and won. She’s undertaken unrelenting advocacy to raise complex issues in the international and national arena that intersect sport, science, gender and human rights. As an inclusion speaker, Kristen’s passionate presentation style is strengthened by a focus on science-backed truths and arguments against illegal discrimination. Her presentations provoke more than thought and discussion, they provide real frameworks to implement change to support building diverse and inclusive workplaces.

Keynote Speeches

On Diversity & Inclusion Implementation

Many organizations state they’re aware of the positive impact embracing diversity and inclusion can have for their teams both personally and professionally. And they have good intentions and have begun efforts but aren’t sure what a true diversity and inclusion program could look like at the next level.  Worley notes it’s time to move beyond awareness and initial efforts, and go deep to reflect the diverse population of your organization’s team, clients and supporters. 

 

How to Create Change While Staying True to Yourself

One person can make a significant difference.  Worley’s efforts to create change in the world of sports and human rights took her case all the way to the international level, where her voice was heard and policies changed. She saw the power of making herself an equal, of partnering, and focusing on the universal impact.   She shares her struggles, her passion and her road to success. 

Healthcare & Science
Kristen Worley was subjected to gender testing, psychological testing, and having her most private medical documentation shared with panels of men outside the medical field to make personal judgments on her status and if she ‘was woman enough.’ In order to meet certain protocols required by sport, she underwent medical procedures which resulted in complete hormone deprivation, removing her body’s day to day ability to regulate itself. Hear her surprising story through the sporting healthcare system and her advice to doctors, hospitals and healthcare workers.

Healthcare & Science

Kristen Worley was subjected to gender testing, psychological testing, and having her most private medical documentation shared with panels of men outside the medical field to make personal judgments on her status and if she ‘was woman enough.’ In order to meet certain protocols required by sport, she underwent medical procedures which resulted in complete hormone deprivation, removing her body’s day to day ability to regulate itself. Hear her surprising story through the sporting healthcare system and her advice to doctors, hospitals and healthcare workers.

Platform Plus Presentations

Unique formats and ways to connect with audiences.
Workshop | Advocating for Policies based on Scientific Fact Based Decisions
What if you were invasively investigated not based on proof or fact-based evidence, but just on suspicion that you’re not who you say you are? Worley encourages organizations to review their policies and how decisions are made. Elements can include: * Reviewing communications & revising internal policies to embrace human rights; * Launching awareness and education related to diversity; * Advocating for the establishment of standards and guidelines based in objective scientific research

Audience reviews:

  • Anyone who meets Kristen, realises in seconds that she is not only a passionate advocate about these issues - but a knowledgeable one. While there is, of course, emotion and a very human element in the case, Kristen has kept focussed on science and the law, and ensured that her arguments are evidence-based. Kristen is singlehandedly redefining gender recognition in world sport.

    - Jaimie Fuller, SKINS Chairman
  • Engaging, humbling and powerful keynote from ⁦‪Kristen Worley‬⁩ at the ⁦‪Alberta Sport leadership conference. Sport should be universally accessible! - Attendee, Alberta Sport Leadership Conference
  • Your story during the Opening Keynote was so inspirational and thought-provoking for everyone that was in attendance.* It was an absolute pleasure to have you address the sports leaders of Alberta!

    - Consultant, Sport Development Alberta Sport Connection
  • The policy changes and advocacy initiatives agreed upon in her case may force the IOC and WADA to finally abandon dated thinking on sex and gender issues and look to 21st-century science to bring about fairness for XY women in sport.

    - NOW Magazine
  • She's undertaken an unrelenting advocacy to raise complex issues in the international and national arena that intersect sport, science, gender and human rights.

    - Brenda Culbert, Lawyer, Human Rights Legal Support Centre

Speaker Biography

“My vision encourages sport and the Olympic Movement to do what it is supposed to do best: harmonizing and celebrating through sport the magic and enormity of our human diversity.”   Kristen Worley

Kristen Worley is a world class cyclist who challenged the highest levels of international sport on science, gender and human rights…and won.

Worley shines a spotlight on the need for policies to be backed by evidence and science, on the power of identity and self-worth, and the value of diversity and inclusion. She’ll challenge your assumptions, help organizations review how they make decisions, and shed light on healthcare and human rights.

She’s been tirelessly at the forefront of the struggles against sport gender rules for more than 16 years, and working as an educator and adviser regarding diversity education and inclusive policy in global sport.  The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario accepted her landmark case, where she argued that sport’s policies on gender infringed on human rights. As a result of her multiyear efforts, in 2017, the parties including the International Olympic Committee agreed “to promote inclusive sporting environments” in international sport.   

She’s since founded the Human Diversity in Sport Foundation, sharing a vision of inclusive sport. 

Earlier in her career, as a competitive cyclist, she wanted to compete at the Olympic level in the female category. However as a transitioned female elite athlete, she was forced to choose between not competing or competing and facing significant illness due to outdated, unscientific policies. 

Kristen Worley was born and raised as classically male, but after realizing she had a medical condition in which a person’s sex and gender identity are not aligned, she underwent gender reassignment via surgery to become a transitioned woman.

She spent her teenage years trying to navigate a world she didn’t understand, seeking counselling at mental health clinics, attempting suicide, and being abandoned by family.

It was sport that finally saved her. Though sport challenged her in ways she didn’t expect.  

Through her incredibly challenging effort to become recognized by the International Olympic Committee, she faced invasive medical procedures, highly personal questioning, and challenges to her identity. She committed herself to bringing awareness and change to international heights by challenging sports’ definition of gender.  She was the first athlete in the world who was subject to the IOC’s 2003 Stockholm Consensus regarding conditions under which athletes who had changed sex could compete in sporting competitions. 

Society and Olympic sport separate men from women, and confer assumptions about competitive advantage on ‘men’ due to their higher testosterone levels, and disadvantages to women. However, Kristen Worley’s case, based on scientific evidence, proves that higher natural testosterone provides no competitive advantage. And in fact, there are nine different chromosome make ups.

Worley fought for three years against a policy ‘based on fantasy rather than hard scientific fact, being caught between the IOC threatening to remove cycling from the Olympics if the UCI supported her on the one hand, and the Canadian Government on the other who stood to lose all UCI sanctioned cycling events in Canada if she won her human rights litigation,’ notes the Sports Integrity Initiative.

Worley has encouraged a broader discussion and the need for education to help ensure better healthcare for athletes and people with diverse bodies. “This is important for Canada. We have always presented ourselves as a nation with a focus on human rights, through our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s a unique opportunity.”

She’s now speaking in Canada and Worldwide to share her story. She’s been featured in Geneva at the Mega Sporting Events Platform for Human Rights, at the Integrity in Sport & Athletes Rights Law Conference and more.

Kristen is in great demand as a speaker on gender diversity in sport and is both chronicling her journey via an international film documentary, and writing a book expected in 2018 with Penguin Random House.