Minister tells sports chiefs to stop male-born athletes competing against women
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’.
‘Keep women’s sport for those born female’
Her intervention comes amid growing international momentum to act to limit the potential biological 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’.