UK minister calls on sports to review inclusion policies to ensure fairness in women’s sport

(Reuters) – Britain’s sports minister Lucy Frazer has said all sporting bodies in the country should look carefully at their rules on transgender athletes competing in women’s sports to ensure fairness.

Global governing bodies for cricket, cycling, athletics, swimming and chess have tightened their participation rules for transgender players in elite women’s competitions over the last couple of years.

Several British sporting bodies, including the Football Association, allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sport if they can show reduced levels of testosterone. In December, a group of British MPs called on England’s FA to ban transgender players from participating in women’s soccer, while global soccer governing body FIFA is reviewing its eligibility policies.

Frazer was asked about the issue in a discussion on Sky News about the powers the government’s proposed Independent Football Regulator would have.

“I would encourage competitive sport to consider this very carefully,” Frazer said.

“I think it’s very important that women are able to compete against women and there’s an inherent unfairness, that if you’re not biologically a woman, you have a competitive advantage.

“A number of sports have looked at this very carefully and come to the decision that it’s not appropriate to have women competing against people who are not biologically women.”

Critics of transgender inclusion in women’s sport say going through male puberty imbues athletes with a huge musculo-skeletal advantage that transition does not mitigate.

LGBT advocacy groups say excluding trans athletes amounts to discrimination and that not enough research has been done into the impact of transition on athletic performance.

The Sunday Telegraph at the weekend reported that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was looking at overhauling Britain’s equality laws, in part to “protect” women’s sport.