Mick Hartley

Exciting times for women's sport. Records are falling all over the place:

Transgender athlete Rachel McKinnon defended her sprint title at the Masters Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester.

The 37-year-old, competing in the female 35-39 sprint category, had set a new world best time in qualifying.

The Canadian beat American Dawn Orwick for the gold, with Denmark's Kirsten Herup Sovang claiming the bronze.

McKinnon's victory adds to the silver she won in the 500m time trial earlier this week.

Not doing so well in men's sport? Put on some lipstick, say you're a woman, and suddenly you're breaking records and winning gold medals! Where's the problem? Well, apart from the trampled hopes and ambitions of the women you're beating, obviously…

The backlash is building, though:

Some notable female athletes have said transgender athletes should not compete in female competitions.

They claim women who were born biological males retain a competitive advantage in some sport and have called for more research into the issue.

Ex-swimmer Sharron Davies said it will take female athletes "being thrown under the bus" at Tokyo 2020 before changes are made to transgender rules. […]

Former British Masters champion Victoria Hood, who competes in the same category as McKinnon but is currently injured, told BBC Sport that other riders "sacrificed" the opportunity to compete at the World Championships because "they don't want to compete" against McKinnon.

"The science is there. The science is clear – it tells us that trans women have an advantage," she said.

"The world record has just been beaten today by somebody born male, who now identifies as female, and the gap between them and the next born female competitor was quite a lot.

"The world record was two tenths of a second. I know that doesn't sound like a lot but it is.

"The gap between them and the next female competitor was four tenths, which to put into perspective in a sprint event like this, that would be 15m of the track, when sprint events are usually won by centimetres.

"It is a human right to participate in sport. I don't think it's a human right to identify into whichever category you choose."

Earlier this week, athletics' governing body the IAAF said trans female athletes must lower their levels of testosterone.

Which is largely irrelevant to the main problem – the elephant in the room, you might say – which is that biological males have significant advantages in body strength which no amount of hormone reduction is going to change.

But Hood called on sports' governing bodies to "step up", saying they were "excluding" athletes born female.

"If people want to push this through some misguided idea that they are being inclusive, it is not inclusive. It is excluding women and girls from their own category. It's not fair," Hood said.

"The IOC need to make fair policies that are based on the science that we have, because if they can't then they are not fit for purpose.

"They are washing their hands of it and it is becoming more political than it is about science and biology."