Mick Hartley

Sharron Davies at the Telegraph, in an unforgiving mood:

While we are all bending over backwards in gratitude to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), how ridiculous that we have to be grateful just to have women’s sport returned to women. What an insane position that the IOC adopted in the first place, presuming that somebody who identified as the opposite sex had no advantage. If there is no biological difference between men and women, then there is no point at all in having separate male and female categories. Except everyone knows that this difference exists.

For far too long, fairness has been disposable for women. Since the IOC took sex screening away in the 1990s, it has taken more than 25 years just to return to the point of common sense. Issues affecting men’s sport, such as shark skin swimsuits or Paralympians wanting to compete at the Olympics, were resolved within months – not a quarter of a century. We have had a decade of allowing people to self-identify, of basing rules on feelings rather than science.

Now that science has won the day, the next hurdle is to make sure these changes apply to all women, not merely the elite. There is no way you can turn around and say that to people at grass-roots levels, to juniors and even recreational athletes, that certain women are not worthy of fair sport. Every woman is worthy of fair sport. Otherwise, it is direct sex discrimination. You cannot declare, “Yes, this is unfair and unsafe,” while failing to extend that principle to all levels of sport. Women and girls want to compete fairly, just the same as everybody else. Where else do we find our next Olympians, if they do not come through this route? ….

Maybe, under the first female president, things will change. But it is just so sad that on an issue so fundamental, the IOC proved to be such an old boys’ club. Just remember what Richard Budgett, a British doctor and the IOC’s former medical director, once said: “The important thing to remember is that trans women are women.” What an idiotic remark. Misogyny has been rife within the IOC to the point where women did not matter. What changed were the examples that the public could no longer ignore. When people were watching Lia Thomas, a trans-identifying male, taking a US collegiate title in women’s swimming, or Khelif beating the hell out of female opponents in boxing, there was a pressure to which the IOC had to bow. People saw something on their screens that was unbelievably unfair and dangerous.

Yes, it was the public backlash that did it. People saw what was going on: our elite sporting bodies pushing women under the bus as they rushed to accommodate the absurdities of the trans activists. Finally the message got across, but it should never have happened in the first place.

When it comes to the female category, I am delighted that it has finally seen the light. But do not forget we are here because the IOC has, until now, made the wrong choices. And it did so without any scientific basis, only interviewing transgender athletes who had an agenda. Yes, Coventry has listened at last, but the organisation she runs should have been doing the scientific work from the very beginning. Sorting this out should never have taken so long.