Minister tells sports chiefs to stop male-born athletes competing against women
Swimming ban could help women to break silence M Trans rule faces legal challenge M Triathlon and hockey next to act
NADINE DORRIES has demanded that British sporting bodies should ban male-born transgender athletes from competing against women.
In an article, right, for The Mail on Sunday, the Culture Secretary reveals she will hold a meeting on Tuesday with Sport England and organisations representing football, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics and other sports to urge them to follow the example of the International Swimming Federation (Fina) – the sport’s world governing body – by stating that trans women who have ‘gone through male puberty’ can no longer enter female events.
Fina’s move – followed a day later by a similar announcement from the International Rugby League – is hailed by Ms Dorries as ‘reason... returning to the world of sport’.
She writes: ‘When I gather our own sporting governing bodies this week, I’ll be making it crystal clear that I expect them to follow suit’. Her intervention comes amid growing international momentum to act to limit the potential biological
‘Keep women’s sport for those born female’
advantage gained by trans women in competitive sport.
Fina acted after a scientific panel said going through male puberty meant trans women had a ‘relative performance advantage over biological females, even after medication to reduce testosterone’.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has hinted that the sport could impose a similar ban.
Under Lord Coe, World Athletics has introduced rules that cap testosterone levels for transgender athletes, explaining: ‘We always believed biology trumps gender. We will continue to review our regulations in line with this.’ Football’s world body, Fifa, is also reviewing its ‘gender eligibility regulations’.
In March, cycling’s world body, the UCI, blocked trans cyclist Emily Bridges, 21, from the British National Omnium Championships amid threats of a rider boycott.
Ms Dorries argues that it ‘shouldn’t need to be said’, but ‘in the vast majority of sports, asking women and teenage girls to compete against someone who was biologically born a male is inherently unfair’.
She adds: ‘I have the greatest compassion for anyone who finds themselves living in a body they don’t recognise. But we can’t pretend that sex doesn’t matter.
‘Sex has biological consequences. If you’re born a male, and you go through puberty as a male, your body develops natural physical advantages over a woman’s. That makes you stronger and faster. I’m setting a very clear line on this: competitive women’s sport must be reserved for people born of the female sex. Not someone who was born male, took puberty blockers or has suppressed testosterone, but unequivocally and unarguably someone who was born female. I want all of our sporting governing bodies to follow that policy.’
Moves to reform sports entry requirements have been criticised by the LGBT rights body Stonewall, which says the ‘inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the issue only serves to perpetuate an atmosphere where trans people feel unwelcome to play community sport with their friends or go to the gym’.
M
THE slickly choreographed vote belied the toxic nature of the subject when 152 individuals left the sunshine of Budapest and stepped into a windowless conference room to vote on the issue that is tearing sport apart.
The delegates of the International Swimming Federation (FINA) were ushered towards high-backed white chairs, set amid lavish floral decorations inside the Puskas Arena, where they were to vote on a proposal to ban transgender competitors from the sport’s elite level.
Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, might be proposing an audacious ban on transgender athletes from women’s elite sport in Britain, but FINA’s move to do so last Sunday revealed the complexity of tackling such a toxic issue. Putting it to a vote gave the outcome a legitimacy. But it carried an obvious risk.
The cornerstone of FINA’s play in Budapest, where it secured a 71.5 per cent vote in favour of the ‘policy on eligibility’ (note the deft omission of the word ‘transgender’) — was the introduction of Olympic swimmers Cate Campbell (below) and Summer Sanders to address the voters. Not easy, given that more than 20 swimmers interviewed by FINA in the process of producing this policy have not been named, for fear they will be exposed to abuse.
Australian Campbell’s intimate story of how swimming had given her an identity when she arrived in Brisbane from Malawi with her family as an outsider in 2001 — ‘a shy, tall, freckly girl with a South African accent and no confidence’ — was presented as a metaphor for sport’s powers of inclusion. ‘It pains me that my role here may injure, infuriate and alienate an already marginalised community,’ the multiple world record holder said. ‘I’ve wrestled long and hard with what to say.’ Much humility. No vainglory. Very good optics, as the PR people like to say.
And that wasn’t the only way that FINA moved heaven and earth to get the result they wanted. This vote was only necessary because the International Olympic Committee surrendered responsibility last November and left it to individual international sporting federations to find a solution.
FINA called on sentiment as it prepared delegates to agree that transgender women would only be permitted to compete in elite women’s races if they had completed their gender transition by the age of 12.
There was the kind of scientific clarity that the most befuddled delegate could understand. A pink line for female and grey line for male on a Powerpoint graph charting how testosterone levels diverge when boys leave puberty — giving them an overwhelming advantage which conversion therapy cannot undo. Data was provided showing that 4,121 males have beaten the current women’s 50m freestyle world record.
The results of a ‘trans survey’ of individual members supplemented this battery of evidence, showing 83 per cent support for a ban. ‘FINA only seemed to have one story,’ says an individual who was in the room. ‘Everything pointed to the result they wanted.’
It was a slight surprise that fewer than three-quarters of delegates supported the policy. Since most developing countries and those with strict religious regimes were like to vote against through sheer conservatism, a number of western European countries must have been among the 15.3 per cent who pressed the ‘no’ button on their hand-held voting machines. A further 13.1 per cent abstained.
That same toxicity lay behind controversial aspects of the management of the vote, The Mail on Sunday understands. Delegates were given sight of the 24-page document proposing the ban less than 15 minutes before they voted for fear that it would be leaked or predistributed. ‘That would have created a media storm,’ says one senior executive. ‘The limited time available to read it was not ideal.’
There was no place at the conference room platform for a trans athlete with an opinion contrary to Campbell and Sanders’ because of the risk it proposed to the desired outcome. ‘The overriding aim was to explain this policy,’ says the source. ‘We didn’t want to complicate that.’
It is understood that a number of human-rights lawyers are considering a legal challenge to the decision, through the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) if necessary, with the management of the vote something they may cite.
Nikki Dryden, a Canadian former Olympic swimmer turned humanrights lawyer, said that the limited time available to read the document could be used as part of a legal challenge.
‘The people who voted for this policy had 14 minutes to read it and vote,’ Dryden said. ‘It’s a highly technical, 24-page policy. The whole thing around how [the policy] was passed is to be challenged. This is not the end of it. This will go all the way up to CAS.’
FINA is confident that it can meet any kind of legal challenge. Its executive director Brent Nowicki, who led Sunday’s presentation, is a former managing counsel at CAS, while the experts FINA has engaged on the policy include James Drake QC, a London-based former CAS arbitrator. ‘There’s more than a possibility that we will face a legal challenge,’ says a source.’ It’s why this document is so legalled. It’s got lawyers’ fingerprints all over it.’
FINA can justifiably argue that it did actually put the issue to a vote, whilst bodies such as World Athletics, World Rugby and World Rowing have merely drawn up proposals and implemented them.
The vote — albeit a stage-managed one — lends a democratic veneer which International Rugby League did not display when it announced on Tuesday that it was precluding athletes who have transitioned from male to female from international competition, before further consultation and research.
That announcement showed how swimming is providing cover for others. Lord Coe announced within 24 hours of the FINA vote that the World Athletics council would also be reviewing its rules governing transgender and DSD (differences in sex development) athletes — who are usually born with internal testes, at the end of the year.
World Triathlon will make an announcement even sooner. The sport’s British governing body recently polled its members and a briefing is scheduled within the next few weeks. The International Hockey Federation (IHF) is also reviewing its policy.
The view within several of these sports is that swimmers such as Campbell, Sanders, Sharron Davies and Britain’s Karen Pickering, who also spoke well last week, have provided a safer space for other athletes to break cover and express views.
‘No one wants to risk that pile-on,’ says a source within elite triathlon. ‘People are still simply afraid to speak but listening and reading Davies, that did give you courage.’
It pains me that I may injure or alienate. I’ve wrestled long and hard with what to say