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This week, however, was different.
The Supreme Court has ruled that, under equalities law, a woman is defined by biological sex meaning that only individuals who were born female are women.
The implications are likely to be far-reaching and sport, in particular, is one field in which the ramifications of this ruling are likely to be significant.
As things stand, the sporting world’s rules and regulations regarding whether or not trans women can compete in the female category are, frankly, a mess.
Some sports allow trans women to compete against females, while others do not. The lack of clarity and the absence of a blanket rule have seen trans inclusion within sport become a hugely controversial issue in recent years.
A number of sports’ UK governing bodies, including athletics, cricket, rugby league and rugby union, have already adopted policies banning athletes born male or who have gone through male puberty from female events while other sports allow trans women to compete in the female category with few, or no, restrictions.
The Supreme Court ruled this week that ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex The disparity in rules between sports is as a result of no definitive guidelines or laws about trans women but with the Supreme Court’s ruling, there is now clarity; women are defined by biology.
No longer should there be any doubt as to whether or not trans women should be included in women’s sport, and the governing bodies and sporting organisations which currently permit trans women to compete in the female category will now, it seems, have to rapidly shift their stance.
The problem with sport when it comes to trans women is that inclusion and fairness, as well as safety, cannot co-exist.
In an ideal world, sport would be wholly inclusive while at the same time being unscrupulously fair and safe. But it just isn’t possible to have it all.
The question for sports, to this point, has been do they want to choose inclusion, which means allowing trans women to compete in the women’s category against athletes who were born female and so have none of the physical advantages that come with being born male and going through male puberty (just some of the advantages are elevated testosterone levels, greater bone density and greater muscle mass, to name but a few)?
Or do they want to choose fairness and safety which means excluding trans women from the female category which, in turn, ensures fairness for female athletes who do not benefit from the physiological advantages that trans women possess. It also ensures the female athletes’ safety in contact sports, in which there is an increased risk of harm to female athletes when they’re competing against male-born competitors.
The Supreme Court’s ruling has now made clear the way forward; fairness and safety must be the path that sport takes and trans women will, it seems certain, now be excluded entirely from competing in the female category.
There are, of course, many who are deeply disappointed, disheartened and angry about the ruling. They say that the Supreme Court’s decision is yet another move to further marginalise an already marginalised group.
Trans people are, clearly, a minority group within society and there’s little doubt that many, if not all trans people, have faced numerous challenges and obstacles in their life.
There’s not many people, whatever they wanted the Supreme Court’s ruling to be, who feel no empathy for any struggles trans people have faced. And there’s not many people to whom I’ve spoken who don’t agree that individuals should, in the main, be able to call themselves that they want, dress how they want and use whatever pronouns they want.
But there are some areas of life in which it’s just not fair to include trans women, and one of these areas is sport.
There’s an argument that sport doesn’t really matter and if trans women want to compete in women’s sport, we should just let them because it’s an infringement of a trans women’s rights to exclude them. It’s also claimed that the number of trans women in sport is so minuscule that it just isn’t a significant problem, and certainly not a problem sizeable enough to require rules to deal with it.
But these arguments just don’t fly.
The problem with including trans women in women’s sport is it just isn’t fair to female athletes given they have never benefitted from the physiological advantages that individuals born male have. This is exactly why sport is split into male and female categories in the first place.
I don’t believe for a second that excluding trans women from female sport is about marginalising trans people. Indeed many, even most people, feel like me and are entirely happy for trans people to live however they want to live.
But the impact of allowing trans women into women’s sport is just too unfair on female-born athletes.
There are, of course, other areas in society in which the inclusion of trans women also isn’t justifiable, with women’s refuges and women’s changing rooms two cases in point.
Along with these examples, sport also has to have defined rules about the inclusion of trans women because there’s a raft of scientific evidence which shows trans women, even having taken testosterone-suppressing medication, retain physical advantages which come from being born male. Without rules excluding trans women, the unfairness to female-born athletes is too great.
It should be made clear that no one is suggesting trans women be excluded from sport altogether but rather, only that they should be excluded from women’s sport.
Every single person I’ve heard speak on this topic agrees trans women remain welcome in sport. The caveat, though, must be that they should not compete in the female category and instead, should compete in the male category, or an open category, which an increasingly high number of sports are now including in their competition schedule. Sport should maintain its open door to all policy and I don’t know a soul who believes otherwise.
Where the sporting world goes from here, and the speed of action, will be interesting to observe.
I have less of a vested interested these days than I would have had during my time as an athlete but I know that had I still been competing, I’d want to see movement in the rules and regulations sharpish. There should, given the Supreme Court’s ruling, be no delay in sporting bodies updating any regulations that need updated.
This clarity has been a long time coming, and will feel even longer for any female athletes who have been disadvantaged by the inclusion of trans women in their sport.
But better late than never and going forward, sport will be a fairer, and safer, place for female athletes. And that is a good thing.
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