Ten sports organisations, including the popular Parkrun, are facing potential legal action over their policies on transgender inclusion.
Baroness Sharron Davies, a silver medallist for Great Britain at the 1980 Olympics, is part of a coalition urging these bodies to revise their guidelines, which she has branded a “true scandal”. This move follows a UK Supreme Court ruling last year that prompted several sports governing bodies, such as the English and Scottish Football Associations, to update their regulations.
In April last year, the Supreme Court clarified terms within the 2010 Equality Act. It specifically stated that Section 195 of the Act, which permits the lawful exclusion of athletes from gender-affected sports based on sex, was “plainly predicated on biological sex”.
Davies’ Women’s Sports Union, alongside the conservative advocacy group ADF International, has now issued letters to 10 organisations. They contend that these bodies are in breach of the law and are failing to adequately protect women and girls by permitting male-born competitors to participate in their events.
Among the recipients of these letters are the Football Association of Wales, the Irish Football Association, Swim England, and British Gymnastics, in addition to parkrun.
The letter to parkrun was posted on ADF’s website. It claims parkrun’s policy is “not aligned” with the Supreme Court ruling and that parkrun is therefore exposed to “immediate and substantial legal liability”.
Separate to the letter, Davies said: “It is a true scandal that men are still allowed to compete against women in sport, a year after the For Women Scotland Supreme Court ruling.
“Failing to protect women’s sport from males who claim to be female eradicates fairness in competition and presents extreme safeguarding concerns, all in the name of a false ideology.
“I have heard horror stories from parents whose girls have been exposed to extremely inappropriate and harmful situations, due to the failure to protect exclusive female sport categories and changing facilities.
“All sports bodies must act now to stop the risk of these terrible situations happening again in the future.
“Some organisations have merely acted to protect sport at the elite level, while allowing men to compete against women at the amateur level. This is unacceptable—all women who play sport must be able to do so in a safe and fair environment.
“If they cannot, many women will simply opt out of sport. Women’s sport must be protected at all levels and the importance of this is underlined by the fact that professional female athletes are drawn from the amateur pool.
“Today, we put 10 sports bodies that fail to recognise biological reality on notice. If they don’t act to do the right thing, we will not hesitate to pursue all legal options.”
According to its published gender categorisation rules on its support pages,parkrun allows competitors to identify by gender rather than sex.
The webpage states: “We feel this is aligned with us as a health and wellbeing charity that provides non-competitive, socially-focused physical activity, and allows people to identify in the way they feel most appropriate and comfortable.”
Parkrun has been contacted for comment in response to the letter from the Women’s Sports Union and ADF.
