Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries says she will make it “clear” to British sports bodies that women’s competitive sport should be reserved for women-born people when she meets them on Tuesday to discuss their policies. transgender.
Dorries will urge organizations representing football, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics and other sports to follow the guidance of Fina, the swimming organization, preventing the female events of trans women who they have “gone through male puberty.”
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Dorries said: “I have the greatest compassion for anyone who is in a body they don’t recognize. But we can’t pretend that sex doesn’t matter. Sex has biological consequences. If you you are born a male, and go through puberty as a male, your body develops natural physical advantages over the female.That makes you stronger and faster.
“I draw a very clear line on this: women’s competitive sport should be reserved for people born of the female sex. Not someone who is born male, has taken puberty blocks or has suppressed testosterone, but unequivocally and indisputably someone who is born female. I want all of our sports governing bodies to follow this policy. “
As things stand, most international sports also allow trans women to compete in the women’s category if they reduce their testosterone for 12 months. Similar policies are also adopted by most British sports at the national level. However, at the base it is not uncommon for trans women to be able to self-identify female events.
In the past week, however, there has been a seismic change from some international governing bodies. Fina decided to change her policy after her scientific panel found that trans women had a “relative performance advantage over biological women, even after medication to reduce testosterone” – a stance soon followed by the International Rugby League. World Athletics has also hinted that it might follow.
Such decisions were welcomed by Dorries, who wrote: “Finally, the reason seems to be to return to the world of sport – and when I meet our own sports governing bodies this week, I will make it clear that they are waiting for me. follow the example.
“It shouldn’t be said, but in most sports, asking women and teenagers to compete against any male born person is inherently unfair – especially when we know that there are challenges and barriers in place that prevent them from women and women participating. in sports ”.
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Dorries will emphasize that message at Tuesday’s meeting, when transgender policies at the elite and grassroots levels will be discussed. Read also : USA vs Colombia – Football Match Report – 25. June 2022. However, it is understood that the government will ultimately leave it to individual sports to decide where the line should be drawn.
That might even prove a recipe for stasis. Last year, the Equality Group of Sports Councils, set up by the five councils that fund grassroots sport in the UK, said there was no magic solution to satisfying all sides of the debate and That the sport had to choose between security and equity on the one hand and the trans. inclusion to the other. However, there has been little change since then.
Meanwhile, any significant change is likely to be opposed by the LGBTQ + Stonewall body. He warned earlier that “the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the problem only serves to perpetuate an atmosphere where trans people feel unwelcome to play community sports with their friends or to go to the gym.”
