The UK Culture Secretary has urged major sporting bodies to ban transgender athletes from competing in elite women’s sporting events.
She met with representatives from sports like cricket and football, encouraging them to follow other sports that do not allow transgender women to compete against those whose sex assigned at birth was female.
“For years it was too loaded an issue to touch, despite the fact that it has the potential to make women’s playing fields far from level,” Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said.
The Secretary argued that biology matters in sports and that allowing transgender women could undermine fairness and safety for female athletes due to potential physical advantages from male puberty.
She pointed to examples of cycling and running that have created open and female-only categories.
“That’s why this week I called together representatives from key sporting organisations, like the England and Wales Cricket Board and Football Association, to encourage them to follow the lead of other sports in not allowing trans athletes to compete against women at the elite level,” she said.
“Sporting bodies have a duty to women competing in sport to set out clear guidance and take an unambiguous position,” she said.
“In competitive sport, biology matters. And where male strength, size and body shape gives athletes an indisputable edge, this should not be ignored.”
“By protecting the female category, they can keep women’s competitive sport safe and fair and encourage the young girls who dream of one day being elite sportswomen,” she added.
“We must get back to giving women a level playing field to compete. We need to give women a sporting chance.”
“By implementing an ‘open’ category for transgender athletes to compete against those with a birth sex of male, the ‘female’ category remains solely for those with a birth sex of female,” Frazer said.
“Everyone can take part and nobody experiences an unfair advantage.”
While inaction had been a past issue, the Secretary said the recent Cass Review showed inaction is no longer an option on debates around transgender participation in women’s sports and the use of puberty blockers and hormones for transgender youth.
“Among the many lessons of the Cass Review, it has shown us that inaction and a failure to confront the issues at stake cannot be an option,” she said.
