Trans women in women’s sports: why a blanket ban is wrong

February 2025 Roberta, Trans women and sports campaigner.

It’s just not as simple as a person’s physique

PinkUk is delighted to platform Roberta Francis, a Trans woman and London-based activist, who has spent many years challenging discrimination against the Trans community. An active amateur sportswoman, Roberta is a keen golfer and is a founder of London’s first Trans swimming club, Trans Unit. Roberta suggests that the controversy around Trans women in women’s sports has almost completely shut down Trans’ people’s views and mainstream media is playing to the false proposition that by participating in women only sports, Trans women create an unfair playing field.

It’s just not as simple as that, writes Roberta...

There’s been a lot of sound and fury surrounding the participation of Trans athletes in women’s competitive sports such as Lia Thomas in swimming and more recently Hailey Davidson in golf. It has always been tricky for me being a Trans woman. But when, in December 2024, I witnessed the complete anti-Trans bias displayed by a panel on a UK TV breakfast show, I felt I needed to voice my opinion, if I could. The panel were discussing the latest person to throw their hat in the ring about Trans women in sport, Judy Murray, the Scottish tennis star. By joining the debate, Judy reinforces a general, mainstream media line that argues men, and therefore automatically Trans women, are also bigger, stronger and faster and so have an unfair advantage on the pitch, in the ring or in the pool or wherever. However, this view does not always take into account scientific arguments.

The result is that each day a new sporting body or organisation seems to take as gospel that men and by logic male to female Trans sports women are stronger than all biological women as an irrefutable, universal fact. Transgender women always fall into this category. However, the debate doesn’t always consider the evidence: for example, differences in human stature within genders and how hormones affect strength. It was telling that during the short discussion they did not include any Trans viewpoint.

Trans people are systematically excluded from these ‘debates’ by most of the mainstream media

Impartiality has disappeared. That TV breakfast show discussion consisted of a series of sound bites designed to be divisive. There was no mention of the difference in strength after taking transitioning hormones, the individual physique of athletes or the types of sports undertaken. Trans people are systematically excluded from these ‘debates’ by most of the mainstream media. I can’t remember the last time any leading Trans activists or allies were invited on to mainstream channels in the UK. What seems to be the line from the majority of the mainstream media feels Orwellian because science is based on modelling and what we are evidencing at present, is in my opinion, a form of group think. Needless to say, I made a complaint about biased coverage to Ofcom, the broadcast watchdog.

Completely bonkers..

In 2023 FIDE, the World Chess Federation, banned Transgender women from playing the sport competitively. According to FIDE, gender reassignment “has a significant impact on a player's status and future eligibility for tournaments”. When questioned by BBC Sport, FIDE said such decisions were to be based on a comprehensive analysis that weighed the impact of various factors such as testosterone. While it has been argued that testosterone can improve concentration, there is no scientific proof of this. I’m not a scientist but in layperson’s terms it just seems completely bonkers to exclude Trans women from chess competitions. A lack of testosterone can make Trans women physically tired and, considering the length of the average professional chess game, which can take hours, wouldn’t that be comparatively a greater obstacle for the Trans woman participant? I am a very keen golfer; I have played the game for many years both before and after my Transition. I am 5 foot 8 inches tall or 173 cm, and broad shouldered. However, when I started taking transition hormones in 2013, I noticed soon after that I was unable to hit the ball the same distance. The average drive for a male mid-handicapper of my build is about 260 yards. From 2013, I took time out from golf and didn’t return to the sport until 2016. Since my transition I have lost about twenty to thirty yards in distance. Whereas I previously could hit a ball further, now my average distance is far less. I like to think I am a fair minded individual so perhaps my shrinking drive range is down partly to age and other physical factors like my arthritis. However, since taking hormones I am definitely not as strong as I used to be.

The science is nuanced

Some studies have shown that Transgender women retain an advantage in muscle mass and strength for up to two years after starting gender affirming hormones. Perhaps this expresses my own experience. But my body is weaker. Ross Tucker, a leading sports scientist argues that for Trans athletes the retention of biological attributes also retains performance advantages, which means that a Trans person’s ranking relative to the ranking of their female peers will go up when they are compared to each other. Someone who’s ranked 500 might improve to the 250s, but you still won’t see the Trans woman on a winner’s podium. It’s the change in performance that matters, not the final outcome. Joanna Harper, a leading sports researcher who is Trans, says there are advantages in some sports, but not in endurance sports. The advantages lie in ‘size and strength’ sports such as rugby. But there are also physiological disadvantages because larger frames with reduced testosterone are powered by reduced muscle mass and aerobic capacity. It’s very complex and it's difficult to do research without an adequate number of research subjects. According to Harper, it may take at least, at least twenty to thirty years to get the really illuminating data. Another problem is that if Trans women athletes are blanket banned where will the data come from?

Like many Trans women, I just want to be included in sport under our gender

The larger international sporting organisations, such as the International Olympic Committee, have placed the responsibility on individual or national sporting bodies to decide but reminding them that they shouldn’t automatically presume that Trans women have a competitive advantage. But many such organisations are doing exactly that. Once you accept that there are two parties that are affected and one of them will always be unhappy, you start to see that fairness and inclusion can't always be balanced. England athletics, Transgender Athletes

Has the lowering of my strength since my transition disadvantaged me? In my LGBT golf society I play off the men’s golf tees as a way to challenge myself. But my golf skills, which are about average, don’t just come from strength but from the skills I have picked up over the years from muscle memory. Golf is very much a mental game and none of my mental skills come from physical strength. Golf is just one sport. It may be the case that men are physically stronger than women and on average they have a bigger body mass index but not all Trans women have a bigger body index than CIS (biologically born) women. Humans come in many shapes and sizes and, while some Trans women may have an advantage in some sporting scenarios, it does not justify a blanket ban on Trans inclusion in women’s sports. While some scientific studies point out a competitive advantage, some researchers don’t always publish all the data and sometimes they miss some of the factors involved.

I have travelled a lot in the last couple of years, mainly around Southeast Asia, and have on some occasions experienced anti-Trans exclusion, not in sport, but in reactions and attitude towards me if I don’t always present in a largely feminine way. Trans people are still an easy target for discrimination, whether in their daily lives or in sports.

At the time of writing I have still not received an answer from Ofcom regarding my complaint about the TV show but I’m looking forward to being able to play sports in the summer.

So where does my community go from here? Perhaps it is going to take time for Trans women in sport to be included. We can't just say that all is fine and as a community we give up. I guess we just have to keep pushing the case and voicing our grievances. What’s certain is that, unless there is proper and fair dialogue between all parties, things won't change.

What do you think? Let us know We have a page for the Trans community.

Roberta Francis is a London-based Trans women and sports campaigner.