Welcoming President Trump’s Executive Order ‘Keeping men out of women’s sports’, campaigners from across the British Isles have urged their leaders to take similar action.
Last week, the US administration rescinded “all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities”, and adopted a policy “to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly”.
Now sex-based rights campaigners in the UK and Republic of Ireland, including sportswomen and women’s groups, say that rules allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting categories should be changed.
‘Unfair and unsafe’
Former Olympian Sharron Davies MBE pleaded: “Please Keir Starmer can you now do as you said you would and protect all female athletes here in the UK in sport and stop males from stealing their places, awards and increasing their risk of injury”.
Fellow Olympian and British marathon runner Mara Yamauchi told the Daily Mail: “It is long overdue for the Prime Minister to do the same in the UK. Women and girls are sick of unfair and unsafe sport against males”.
Fiona McAnena, Director of Campaigns at women’s rights group Sex Matters, said: “We would love to see the Labour government step up and demand this on behalf of sportswomen.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch MP and Independent MP Rosie Duffield have also endorsed Trump’s position on this issue, and called for change in the UK.
‘Hugely popular’
Scotsman columnist Susan Dalgety observed that Trump had “won plaudits from women’s rights campaigners when he signed an executive order that will keep men out of women’s sports, at least in the United States”.
She added that the order was “hugely popular with the American public, with a CNN poll showing that 79 per cent of the population opposed transgender female athletes in women’s sport”.
Dalgety went on to criticise Scottish FA rules that allow a man or teenage boy to “join a female club if he said he was transgender”; while Alison Weir of campaign group For Women Scotland commented: “surely the Scottish FA should stand up and support the women’s game”.
Conservative MSP Tess White commented: “Safety and fairness in women’s sport have triumphed in the United States with the stroke of a pen. Scotland must be similarly ambitious and stand up for female athletes from grass-roots to elite level.”
‘Ludicrous’
At Stormont, DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley welcomed the development in the States and sought assurances from the Executive that participants in women’s sport in Northern Ireland “will be protected in a way that ensures fairness, safety and integrity”.
Minister of Communities Gordon Lyons MLA responded: “Sport is inherently physical. The physiology of the sexes matters. Everyone should be getting behind the notion that women’s sports are reserved for women. Most people will agree with that. In fact, it is regressive to think anything else.”
And in the Republic of Ireland, in light of Trump’s order, independent TD Carol Nolan is calling on national governing bodies to ensure that biological males will be banned from female-only sports activities.
In a press release, she explained: “We must have the courage to point out the blatantly obvious; allowing full grown biological men to compete with young women or girls is nothing short of ludicrous.”
Women’s Sports Should be for Women Only! pic.twitter.com/VE3DXPd39J
— Carol Nolan TD (@CNolanOffaly) February 6, 2025