‘Women’s sport is defined by biology’, Holyrood told

MSPs have called for single-sex sports to be protected all the way from “grassroots to elite level”.

In a motion on safe and fair sport for women and girls, Scottish Conservative MSP Tess White urged the Scottish Parliament to support the free speech of parliamentarians, public figures and the media when discussing the impact of men competing in women’s sports.

The motion marked Scottish Women & Girls in Sport Week, highlighting studies on men’s physical advantage, governing bodies’ actions to prevent men from competing against women, and sportswomen’s fears of being seen as “discriminatory” for contributing to the debate.

‘Obvious’

White read a contribution from former Olympian Sharron Davies MBE, who said: “Over the last few years, with the inclusion of males in sports categories specifically created to give females equal opportunities, thousands of males have stolen female places.

“Not one single peer reviewed study can show us we can remove all male advantage. No woman should have to die to prove the obvious. In a combat sport, this is a huge accident waiting to happen. In any contact sport, it is gross negligence.”

Brian Whittle, Scottish Conservative MSP for South Scotland, added: “Women’s sport is governed by biology and cannot be defined in any other way.”

Gender self-ID

Alba MSP Ash Regan noted that despite pressure to adopt gender self-identification in sport, “gender self-identification is not the law in Scotland” and protections “must be rigorously defended if the integrity and fairness of competition in sport are to be upheld”.

Maree Todd, the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, stated that it is “really important that we are able to discuss difficult issues, on which we may disagree, respectfully”.

When asked if she agreed with protecting women’s sports, she said the UK sports councils’ guidance emphasises that “transgender inclusion, fairness and safety cannot be balanced in gender-affected sport”, and reiterated organisations’ right to restrict men.

Threats

Earlier this year, a pregnant TV presenter was sent death threats after she indicated support for an article criticising the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) handling of the women’s boxing controversy at the Paris 2024 games.

Laura Woods, a sports presenter for TNT and ITV, reshared an article titled ‘Blinded by ideology: Inside boxing row that undermined IOC and tarnished Olympics’ on X.

Woods noted that the abuse she had received is why she had not spoken up on this issue previously. She said: “I want to highlight how difficult it is to have any kind of real discussion on any topic like this – when there is evidence on both sides – without abuse drowning it out”.