Sebastian Coe promised to be ‘guided by science’ when it comes to sport’s most divisive issue. But World Athletics’ solution is clearly designed to protect it from legal action tooNo female athlete has yet commented. Can you blame them given the vicious amount of social media abuse this issue generates? During a star-spangled athletics career, Sebastian Coe rarely snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The most famous exception came at the Olympic 800m final in Moscow where he made so many tactical missteps that his father and coach, Peter, used a coarse four-letter word to describe his run. However this weekend Coe became reacquainted with similar levels of opprobrium after World Athletics’ proposed solution to sport’s most divisive issue...
A powerful movement extending far beyond judo or swimming is framing trans people as aggressors and fraudsNadine Dorries cares. Nadine Dorries just wants to help. Nadine Dorries is making the pinched, sympathetic face she makes when she is doing something that pains her deeply but nonetheless needs to be done, like abolishing the BBC or selling off the colour red. “In a choice between inclusivity and fairness, as culture secretary I will always choose fairness,” Dorries writes in the Mail on Sunday. “So I’m setting a very clear line on this: competitive women’s sport must be reserved for people born of the female sex. I want all our sporting governing bodies to follow that policy.”Nadine Dorries chooses fairness. Nadine Dorries...
Swimming is the latest sport to become embroiled in discord but there are some signs of courteous, informed discussion tooIt is funny how times change. The Guardian has obtained a letter, written in 2003 by Dr Richard Budgett, in which he discusses the consequences of trans women competing in women’s sport. Responding to a government inquiry, Budgett, then at the British Olympic Association, states: “The effect of allowing male transsexuals to compete as women would be to make competition unfair and potentially dangerous in some sports and would undermine women’s sports.”This would have been an interesting answer at the time. It is even more so now. Society has shifted. Language has changed. Budgett is now medical and scientific director at...
One side of the argument believes that women’s sport must be protected, the other that gender identification trumps everything. Debate is needed to find a fair solutionI can’t stop thinking about Feagaiga Stowers. Or rather a picture of the 18-year-old Samoan, standing on the second step of a podium last week, looking stoic but sad. By any measure Stowers is a remarkable woman. As a child she was a victim of sexual violence, and sought refuge at a Victim Support Group where she began weightlifting and went from being “shy and hopeless” – her words – to a world junior and Commonwealth Games champion. Yet having been chosen to be the flag bearer at the Pacific Games, she missed out...
The author, a medical expert who transitioned in her 20s and has advised the IOC, believes science and sporting studies show a route to respecting the rights of all athletesThe participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports continues to be one of the most contentious issues in all of sports. One side claim that it is unfair to allow anyone who has been through male puberty to compete in the women’s division, while the other argues that anyone who identifies as female should be allowed to compete in women’s sport.I believe in a middle ground, one that respects the rights of all female athletes to enjoy meaningful competition, while also allowing those transgender women who have undergone medical transition a...