• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Fair Play For Women

Fair Play For Women

  • Prison
  • Sport
  • GRA
  • Language
  • Changing rooms
  • Resources ▼
    • Take action! Here’s how
    • Key facts
    • UK law
    • Science
    • Sex vs gender
    • Consultation submissions
    • Materials
  • About Us ▼
    • Review of 2022
    • Our aim
    • Our beliefs
    • Our spokeswoman
    • Our history and achievements
    • Our supporters
    • News
      • Newspapers
      • TV Interviews
      • Radio interviews
    • Contact
    • Donate

Sport

All sport resources

The concept of fair play, the bed rock of all competitive sport, is undermined by transgender sport policy. It is a long-established principle that fair and meaningful competition is achieved by grouping different body types into different categories. This is why we commonly see competition based on differences in age, weight and other factors. This is also why sport is divided into male and female sex categories.

transgender sport policy ignores the reality of male and female sport performanceMales have a well-known physical performance advantage over females. Put simply, male bodies are bigger, faster and stronger on average than female bodies.

Female sport gives women the opportunity to showcase the very best of what the female body can do. In mixed competition women would simply never win and our best sportswomen would be unheard of.

The physical differences between male and female bodies is also widely acknowledged. In both UK and international law it is lawful exclude the male sex from female competition to uphold fairness and safety for women.

Recently, we have seen the female category being opened up to transgender athletes who were born male by most national and international sport governing bodies throughout the world. This sort of transgender sport policy is hailed as inclusive – when it works against the inclusion of females in safe and fair sport.

Many US states allow high school boys who self-identify as a girl to compete in female categories. As they are under 18, these “transgirls” will usually have had no medical intervention. Here in the UK many sports clubs now allow males to compete as female if they can show a doctor’s note confirming that they have lowered testosterone into the ‘female range’. Others require no evidence or proof at all. From 2015 to 2021 the Olympic guidelines now state that males who identity as women should be eligible for female competition if their testosterone is <10nmol/L for 12 months. There was no good evidence and no system in place to monitor compliance. In late 2021 the IOC made a new statement moving away from testosterone suppression to a position of “no presumed advantage”, to widespread ridicule. In late 2022, a further IOC “position statement” did nothing to restore their credibility or fairness for females in sport.

These policies do not guarantee safe and fair competition for female athletes. They are based on flawed science. There is currently no scientifically robust, independent research showing that all male performance advantage is eliminated under any of these conditions. For example, this study shows how testosterone reduction for twelve months does not eliminate male advantage.

Put simply, there’s more to male performance advantage than someone’s current testosterone levels.  The legacy effect  of exposure to high levels of testosterone in early life and puberty is well known. Growing up male will give transgender athletes a lifelong edge that simply cannot be fully negated by a period of testosterone suppression.

transgender sport policy ignores the lasting testosterone effects at puberty transgender sport policy and testosterone


Let’s not change the rules without proper evidence. Properly designed intervention studies are urgently required to investigate the effect of transition on trainability and performance.

We are calling on all national and international sporting bodies to suspend their transgender policies regarding the eligibility of male-born transgender athletes into female competition pending further scientific study and analysis. 

If the sporting world changes its rules prematurely and transwomen are found to unfairly dominate, it will be to the detriment of sport and will have destroyed the fair and level playing field for women and girls. Women and girls will lose out on scholarships, team places, medals and the chance to win.

Transgender sport policy needs to be reviewed

We are raising awareness of this issue amongst the public, sporting communities and sports policy makers. We speak on behalf of all women and girls in sport, from schools and clubs through to elite level. We speak up for the working athletes who feel unable to voice their concerns in public. We also support the high-profile world-class athletes who are currently speaking out.

Here you can find the best scientific comment on this topic to support evidence-based policy design. We have a growing network of athletes, sports scientists and coaches working with us to facilitate the necessary expert review to inform best practice, rules and regulations.

We are engaging with a range of sports policy makers at all levels to ensure the sex-based rights of women and girls are considered in all new policy design. We offer expert opinion on the law, policy and science and are currently developing a wide range of policy guidance documents.

A major development in the UK

On 30 September 2021, Sport England announced that the Sports Councils Equality Group had published revised guidance for sport governing bodies across the UK, replacing the 2015 transgender inclusion guidance. After a rigorous review over eighteen months by independent consultants with expertise in sports medicine, they concluded that, contrary to their previous position and the current IOC guidance, allowing males to participate in the female sport category is not compatible with fairness for females. Testosterone reduction does not undo the many performance advantages of male puberty, and there is no known intervention which can do so. We welcome this new guidance, but feel it does not go far enough, as our statement explains. We are now contacting  NGBs and SGBs, and asking to them to consult with us as they consider the new guidance and review their current policies.

Here’s a progress report on that work, as of January 2023.

Read more:

Our statement on the new UK guidance for transgender inclusion in sport

The flawed science of transgender inclusion in women’s sport

Why is transgender inclusion a problem in female competitive sport?

Most people agree that women’s sport should be for females only

Watch Dr Nicola Williams talk about transgender sport policies in sport

Watch Fiona talk about sport and conversion therapy with Julia Hartley Brewer on Talk Radio

Watch Dr Emma Hilton review the scientific evidence used in developing the IOC transgender policy

Dr Williams writing in the National Review, about the trans weightlifter Laurel Hubbard qualifying for Tokyo Olympics, and about how women’s sports are under attack.

All sport resources


TAKE ACTION - WITH OUR SIMPLE TOOLKIT

You can help to defend female rights by making a donation. Fair Play For Women receives no formal or government funding to support the vital work we do. We rely completely on donations made by our supporters.

DONATE NOW

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Biological sex
  • Children
  • Gender Identity
  • Male violence
  • Scottish GRA reforms
  • Silencing women
  • Policy guidance

Our materials

  • Our factsheets
  • Our short films and animations
  • Our memes
  • Our research

Our latest articles

  • Testosterone suppression in sport: time to drop the Roberts study
  • World Athletics new transgender policy fails women
  • Statement on the UK government move to block the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Bill
  • Rowing policies make no sense
  • A progress report on the fight to restore fairness in female sport

Archives

Footer

Prisons, crime and protecting women

  • The facts about transgender prisoners
  • Prisons timeline – how did we get here?
  • Karen White & prison review
  • Sex attacks in female prisons
  • Refuge shelters deeply worried
  • How do women in prison feel about sharing with transgender prisoners?
  • Can you believe what you read about sexual and violent crimes?
  • The judicial review of prisons policy
  • Factsheets

Sport and the human body

  • A progress report on the fight to restore fairness in female sport
  • Biological sex differences
  • Chromosomes, sex and gender
  • The science and statistics behind the transgender debate
  • Guidelines for single-sex sport policy
  • Testosterone suppression in “elite athletes” – what do we know?
  • Safeguarding in sport still matters
  • Male inclusion leads to female exclusion
  • What you can do

Making policy and the law

  • Scottish government is forcing sex self-ID on whole of UK.
  • The Equality Act 2010 and women’s rights
  • GRA reform
  • Advice and guidance for policy makers
  • Changing room policy advice
  • What can I do now?
  • Take Action: Say NO to letting Sex Self-ID in through the back door.
  • Public opinion on the tension between women’s rights and trans demands

© 2023 · Fair Play For Women

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt out if you wish. Read More

Accept Decline Cookie Settings
I consent to the use of following cookies:
Cookie Declaration About Cookies
Necessary (2) Marketing (1) Analytics (4) Preferences (0) Unclassified (4)
Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.
Name Domain Purpose Expiry Type
wpl_user_preference fairplayforwomen.com WP GDPR Cookie Consent Preferences 1 year HTTP
YSC youtube.com YouTube session cookie. 52 years HTTP
Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across websites. The intention is to display ads that are relevant and engaging for the individual user and thereby more valuable for publishers and third party advertisers.
Name Domain Purpose Expiry Type
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE youtube.com YouTube cookie. 6 months HTTP
Analytics cookies help website owners to understand how visitors interact with websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously.
Name Domain Purpose Expiry Type
_ga fairplayforwomen.com Google Universal Analytics long-time unique user tracking identifier. 2 years HTTP
_gid fairplayforwomen.com Google Universal Analytics short-time unique user tracking identifier. 1 days HTTP
vuid vimeo.com Vimeo tracking cookie 2 years HTTP
IDE doubleclick.net Google advertising cookie used for user tracking and ad targeting purposes. 2 years HTTP
Preference cookies enable a website to remember information that changes the way the website behaves or looks, like your preferred language or the region that you are in.
We do not use cookies of this type.
Unclassified cookies are cookies that we are in the process of classifying, together with the providers of individual cookies.
Name Domain Purpose Expiry Type
_gat_UA-109881507-1 fairplayforwomen.com --- Session ---
GASessionCookie fairplayforwomen.com --- Session ---
rtc linkedin.com --- Session ---
_wpfuuid fairplayforwomen.com --- 11 years ---
Cookies are small text files that can be used by websites to make a user's experience more efficient. The law states that we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site. For all other types of cookies we need your permission. This site uses different types of cookies. Some cookies are placed by third party services that appear on our pages.
Cookie Settings