Sport
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The legal status of women-only sport
British law is on our side. The Gender Recognition Act says that a person who gets a gender-recognition certificate (GRC) becomes their acquired gender “for all purposes” – though it also states exceptions. There is legal uncertainty about how this interacts with the Equality Act. This will be tested...
26th November 2024
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Answering questions about data protection
As part of our ongoing work on defending the female category in sport, we recently asked people to get in touch and tell us how male inclusion in women’s sport has affected them. We want to be able to demonstrate the extent of the problem across teams, leagues and...
4th November 2024
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Cricket, where male feelings come first
A fudged decision that serves no one The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the highest-profile national governing body in UK sport to declare that, in effect, male feelings matter more than women’s safety and fairness. That is the implication of its new two-tier policy, which protects the...
21st October 2024
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UN special rapporteur calls for sex screening in women’s sport
The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, has published her report on violence against women and girls in sport. Together with her team, she took evidence in writing and in person, including meetings with Sex Matters and other groups in the UK. In her...
17th October 2024
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When child safeguarding meets gender ideology in sport, children are the losers
An organisation meant to protect children has built gender-identity ideology into its policies, putting children at risk. There is an intrinsic conflict between treating people as the opposite sex to what they are in reality, and protecting children and vulnerable adults. Indeed, there is a conflict between this and...
19th September 2024
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Sporting crises foretold
The awkward truth about “trans inclusion” that regulators need to heed The furore surrounding women’s boxing at the Olympics should be a warning to every international federation. International Olympic Committee media briefings were dominated by questions about eligibility for boxing in the women’s category. Both the IOC spokesman and...
23rd August 2024
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Sex Matters in sport – media briefing
Fiona McAnena, Sex Matters’ director of campaigns, chaired a webinar to brief journalists on the Olympic boxing situation and the science of DSDs (disorders of sexual development) in sport, with a question-and-answer session. Speakers Dr Emma Hilton is a developmental biologist widely regarded as a leading voice on the...
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The problem of male inclusion in women’s sport
A three-page briefing explaining what’s going on in Olympic boxing and the background information you need. Large-print version of this briefing. See also our one-page briefing on sport and DSDs (disorders of sex development).
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XY athletes in women’s Olympic boxing: the Paris 2024 controversy explained
Doriane Lambelet Coleman explains the historical, political, and medical context of the Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting cases.
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International Olympic Committee Was Warned About Male Boxers, World Boxing Organization Vice President Says
A Hungarian sports official has come out and stated that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is not female, reports Jennifer Sieland
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The IOC doubles down on unfairness for women in boxing
The International Olympic Committee’s media briefing on 2nd August was dominated by questions about the eligibility of boxers in the women’s competition. Algerian Imane Khelif had won an opening bout in 46 seconds, amid concerns that the boxer is male. IOC spokesman Mark Adams was asked how the IOC...
2nd August 2024
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Briefing on sport and DSDs (disorders of sex development)
A one-page briefing on male sporting advantage and why DSDs matter in sport. Large-print version of this briefing. See also our three-page briefing explaining what’s going on in Olympic boxing and the background information you need.
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Gender Ambiguity, Transgenderism and Women’s Sport
Every essay Quillette has published on gender-ambiguous and trans-identified men competing against biological women in sport.
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Is Labour positioning itself to fix the mess in women’s sports?
On 23rd July The House magazine, a publication for MPs and peers, published an interview with the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy MP. In it, she said that sport governing bodies should make their own policies concerning trans inclusion, rather than leaving it...
25th July 2024
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Why do people think “transgender rights” have gone too far?
It’s not just about self-ID Support for the law that allows people to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate has fallen a long way over the past few years, most sharply when self-ID was being proposed, in 2018–19 in the UK and then again in 2021–22 in...
14th June 2024
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Guidance for Transgender Inclusion in Domestic Sport – introduction to legal considerations
Guidance by Harper Macleod LLP for the UK Home Nations Sports Councils on the considerations underpinning their Guidance for Transgender Inclusion in Domestic Sport, published in September 2021.
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Who can play women’s football in England?
Briefing for parliamentarians from Sex Matters, April 2024. Includes details of current FA and FIFA policies on the inclusion of trans-identifying males.
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Input to the report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls
For the UN General Assembly on violence against women and girls in sport. Sent with Fair Play For Women's report How 'inclusion' in sport is harming women and girls.
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The International Olympic Committee framework on fairness, inclusion and nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations does not protect fairness for female athletes
Tommy R. Lundberg, Ross Tucker, and Emma N. Hilton contributed equally to this study for the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.
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How trans inclusion in sport is harming women and girls
The harms caused include unfair competition and demoralisation; losing out on records, rankings or on opportunities to participate; no consent or being coerced into a mixed-sex environment; a chilling climate of intimidation, fear and silencing; loss of privacy and dignity; and risks to women’s and girls’ physical safety
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SEEN in Sport
Network set up in April 2024 for all players, coaches, officials and parents who believe that women and girl’s sport should be for biological females only Female categories were instigated by governing bodies precisely because there is a biological difference between men and women, and fair play is only...
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Levelling the playing field – why women and girls matter in amateur sport
Why women and girls matter in amateur sport
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Performance of non-binary athletes in mass-participation running events
By John Armstrong, Alice Sullivan and George M Perry
BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine 2023 Volume 9, Issue 4 -
The trans colonisation of women’s sports
Fiona McAnena explains how an obsessive, decades-long campaign ushered in a whole new era of sporting sexism.
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Transgender competition in combat sports: Position statement of the Association of ringside physicians
Why the ARP does not support transgender athlete competition against cisgender athletes in combat sports – published in The Physician and Sportsmedicine, a peer-reviewed, sports-based medical journal for primary-care physicians.
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Football teams refuse to play after transgender player injures opponent
Oliver Brown for The Telegraph
Exclusive: Four sides in Sheffield women’s league boycotting games after transgender player accused of causing a season-ending injury -
Stonewall chair speaks (and then recants)
Iain Anderson, chair of trustees for Stonewall, has given an extended interview to Sky News’s Beth Rigby. It is well worth watching the whole thing. In the interview Anderson seemed to be trying to distance the organisation from the extreme position it has taken, saying that he recognises that...
22nd July 2023
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Reality vs. Trans Ideology | Helen Joyce & Peter Boghossian
Peter and Helen discuss the definition of sex, why trans men should be allowed in women’s spaces, the tragedy of the commons, fa’afafine, evolution, the “thought-terminating cliché,” the tribal fear of rejection, the cultivation of mental illness, why institutions are losing their North Stars, and much more.
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Fairness in sports governance: a Sex Matters webinar
Our director of advocacy, Helen Joyce, talked to Olympian Sharron Davies and campaigner Fiona McAnena on 28th June 2023 about the work they and others have been doing to reverse unfair policies that allow male athletes into female sporting events on the basis of self-declared “gender identity”. This webinar...
21st June 2023
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Westminster Hall debate on our petition to make the Equality Act clear
Monday 12th June 2023 For the full official transcription of the debate, see Hansard. In the Chair, Judith Cummins began by reminding everyone that the petitions being debated indirectly related to two ongoing legal cases in the Scottish courts, but that reference to those would be allowed. Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower)...
13th June 2023
