When she meets with British sporting organizations on Tuesday to review their transgender policy, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries promises to make it "absolutely clear" that competitive women's sport must only be available to those who were born into the female gender.
Dorries will call on organizations that represent football, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, and other sports to follow Fina, the organization that oversees swimming, and prohibit trans women who have "gone through male puberty" from competing in female competitions.
"I have the utmost compassion for anyone who finds themselves living in a body they don't recognize," wrote Dorries in a letter to the Mail on Sunday. However, we cannot act as though gender is unimportant. Biology is impacted by gender. Your body develops inherent physical advantages over a woman's if you are born a guy and go through puberty as a man. You get faster and stronger as a result.
"I'm drawing a very clear line here: competitive women's sport must only be available to those who identify as female. Unquestionably and unquestionably, someone who was born female, not someone who was born male, had hormone replacement therapy, or has repressed testosterone. I want that rule to be followed by all of our sporting governing bodies.
Currently, trans women can compete in the female division of most international sports if they suppress their testosterone for a year. The majority of British sports at the national level likewise follow similar rules. However, trans women frequently self-identify into feminine activities at the local level.
However, some global governing organizations have made a significant change in the last week. The International Rugby League quickly adopted Fina's approach after its scientific panel concluded that trans women had a "relative performance advantage over biological females, even after medication to suppress testosterone." World Athletics has also made hints that it might do the same.
"Finally, rationality seems to be returning to the world of sport," wrote Dorries, "and when I gather our own sporting regulating bodies this week, I'll be making it quite clear that I expect them to follow suit." "Finally, rationality seems to be returning to the world of sport," wrote Dorries, "and when I gather our own sporting regulating bodies this week, I'll be making it quite clear that I expect them to follow suit." It should go without saying that forcing women and teenage girls to compete against someone who was born male is fundamentally unfair in the vast majority of sports, especially given the obstacles and challenges that now prevent women and girls from participating in sports.
In the meeting on Tuesday, where transgender policy at the top and bottom levels will be considered, Dorries will emphasize that point. The government will eventually leave it up to individual sports to decide where the line should be drawn, it is understood.
That might eventually work as a recipe for stasis. Sports have to pick between safety and fairness on the one side and trans inclusion on the other, according to the Sports Councils Equality Group, which was established by the five councils that sponsor grassroots sport in the UK last year. But since then, not much has changed.
The LGBTQ+ organization Stonewall is likely to be against any big reforms in the meantime. Prior to now, it had issued a warning that the "inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the subject only helps to promote a culture where trans persons feel uncomfortable to play community sport with their friends or attend to the gym."
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