Sex Matters In Sport: 3,000 Athletes Among More Than 5k Who Signed Petitions Calling On Fair Play For Women In Transgender Inclusion Debate

2022-03-15 Reading Time: 5 minutes
champion women
Champion women - calling for Fair Play and rights to be upheld by recognition of biological sex categories in sport and inclusion of transgender athletes that respects the rights of all

More than 3,000 athletes, including almost 300 members of United States Olympic, Paralympic and National Teams, are among 5,446 key stakeholders calling on sports authorities to acknowledge that sex matters in sport and categorisation based on biological sex is the only way to deliver Fair Play for women in the face of transgender athletes bringing male strengths to the arena, pool, track, lake, court and gym.

The petition includes a Who’s Who of swimmers and coaches from the USA and around the world at a time when global regulator FINA is formulating its own rules on inclusion in the wake of USA Swimming rules that effectively bar from women’s sport any transgender women who grew up as boy to man before transition.

Among those signing the petitions in support of sex categorisation based on biological sex are American swim legends Tracy Caulkins Stockwell, the American swim legend who now heads Swimming Australia as president of the federation, Debbie Meyer Weber, the first women to claim gold in the Olympic 200m 400 and 800m freestyle, and Madam Butterfly Mary T. Meagher Plant.

Other Olympic gold medallists on the list include John Naber, Karen Moe Humphreys, Deena Schmidt, Ashley Tappin-Doussan, Chistina Teuscher, Tripp Schwenk, Jill Sterkel and Betsy Mitchell.

The petition is also backed by many others USA teamsters and athletes who became coaches, as well as Olympic and World champions and medallists and from aquatics sports from around the world, including Micki King, Sharron Davies, June Croft, Rick Demont, Sharon Finneran Rittenhouse, Jeff Float, Madeleine Crippen, Erika Brown, Jessica Hardy, Brett Hawke, Craig Beardsley, Glenn Mills, Jennifer Hooker Brinegar, Marybeth Linzmeier Dorst, Cathy Treible, Sue Walsh, Martina Moravcova Valko, Anita Nall and Paul Sparkes.

Among signatories are U.S. National team and Olympic coaches in swimming Eddie Reese, Randy Reese, David Marsh.

Two petitions, organised by the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group and Champion Women, are aimed at getting U.S. Congress and sports governing bodies “prioritise competitive fairness for biological women”. Support for the petitions to date comes on the eve of the most controversial NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships in history given the presence of transgender athletes with male advantages.

The full list of signatories can be found in this document from Champion Women

Alongside the statistics that show strong support for their aims among athletes and other key stakeholders in sport, the two campaign groups state:

“From the onset of male puberty, male bodies develop to be faster, stronger, and more powerful than female bodies as a group. The performance gap emerging from that point forward ranges from 8% to 50% depending on the sport and event. The more explosive strength the sport or event requires, the bigger the gap between males and females.

“In the unlikely event that sports were to be completely redesigned, to be segregated based on some objective physical criteria other than biological sex, e.g., height, weight, bone size, lung size, or wingspan, males would dominate these new categories. Only biological sex-categories can guarantee females a fair playing field in competitive sports. In other words, females cannot overcome this performance gap with more talent or training, better coaching, facilities, or nutrition.”

Women’s Sports Policy Working Group and Champion Women

Sex Matters – The Statement On The Petitions From the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group and Champion Women

(Washington, D.C.)  Over 5446 athletes, parents, coaches and sports officials and others, including almost 300 Olympians and Paralympians, have signed onto two petitions: The Women’s Sports Policy Working Group positions and model legislation and the ChampionWomen.com petition that call upon legislatures and sports governance organizations to prioritize fairness and safety for females over blanket transgender inclusion or exclusion in girls’ and women’s competitive sports.

The Women’s Sports Policy Working Group wants biological sex to determine categorisation so that women’s rights are upheld in a model that also seeks inclusion for transgender athletes

Both petitions ask that legislative bodies and sports organizations ensure that females receive equal opportunities to participate in competitive sports, in the same fair and safe competitive environment as afforded to male athletes. 

Sports are sex-segregated around the world, in recognition of the biological, male-puberty athletic advantage. This universal practice is not about privacy, modesty, or to make up for past sex discrimination. Instead, sex-segregated sport is necessary to provide females – half the world’s population – with equal opportunities to participate. It is the only legal basis to continue the practice of sex-segregation. 

From the onset of male puberty, male bodies develop to be faster, stronger, and more powerful than female bodies as a group. The performance gap emerging from that point forward ranges from 8% to 50% depending on the sport and event. The more explosive strength the sport or event requires, the bigger the gap between males and females.

In the unlikely event that sports were to be completely redesigned, to be segregated based on some objective physical criteria other than biological sex, e.g., height, weight, bone size, lung size, or wingspan, males would dominate these new categories. Only biological sex-categories can guarantee females a fair playing field in competitive sports. In other words, females cannot overcome this performance gap with more talent or training, better coaching, facilities, or nutrition. 

The WSPWG’s policy position is that sport leaders should work cooperatively to fashion rules so that transgender girls and women are fully welcome into sport. Their sport performances should be respected in girls’ and women’s competitive sports if they are separately scored OR if they can demonstrate that their male post-puberty advantage has been sufficiently mitigated. Similar separate scoring based on performance advantages are already fully accepted in sports, such as age categories, or weight categories in wrestling, rowing, and weightlifting, etc.

People of good faith must be able to come together and envision a girls’ and women’s sport space where all girls and women would be welcome, all girls and women would be respected, all girls and women would experience the same fair competition as boys and men; a place where the competitive achievements of females and transgender girls and women would be equally celebrated. In such a construct, biological sex differences and gender identity differences would be accepted as normal human differences. 

2022 is the 50th anniversary of Title IX. We should not be teaching our daughters to be gracious losers to athletes with unfair, insurmountable, biological advantage in their competitive sports. 

See the attached list of names of those who agree. 

 Champion
Women		MERGEDWSPWGTOTAL
OLYMPIAN / PARALYMPIAN / U.S. National Team213284
13 members of WSPWG		94297
COMPETITIVE ATHLETES1694 10112705
FAMILY MEMBER772 93865
SPORTS OFFICIAL46 1258
RECREATIONAL103 316419
SWIMMING FAN214 57271
OTHERS159 292451
SIGNED, BUT DID NOT WANT NAME PUBLIC0 393393
TOTAL3201 22685446

WSPWG Working Group:

  • Donna de Varona, OLY
  • Nancy Hogshead-Makar, J.D., OLY Donna Lopiano, Ph.D.
  • Martina Navratilova, OLY
  • Tracy Sundlun

End of petitions statement

Related SOS Coverage:

Share this post