Sharron Davies backs motion calling for women-only categories in sport

Sharron Davies has given her support to Conservative MSP Tess White’s parliamentary debate on the importance of safe and fair sport for women and girls.   

The business motion, which will be debated later today, follows controversy over the gender eligibility of two competitors in women’s boxing at the Olympics in Paris this summer.  

Algeria's Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan both won gold medals but they both came under scrutiny during the games after it emerged they had both been disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Championships for supposedly failing unspecified sex eligibility tests.  

The International Olympic Committee vigorously defended the boxers and cast doubt over the reliability of the Russian-led International Boxing Association’s tests.  

The motion, which has received cross-party support, is calling for single sex-categories for women in sport to be protected from grassroots to elite level.  

Davies, who won a silver medal in the women's 400m medley at the 1980 Olympics, has been a long-time advocate for biological sex as the crucial criterion to ensure female athletes are not disadvantaged or put at risk.   

Davies 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 shows us how we can remove all-male advantage.  

“Males of equal weight and size punch 160 per cent harder onto a less dense bone structure. In a combat sport this is a huge accident waiting to happen. In any contact sport, it is gross negligence.  

“Men would not tolerate this inclusion if it affected their sports, but women are just expected to give up what is theirs by right.  

“A female-protected category and an open, fully inclusive category is the only answer.”  

White said: “It is fantastic to have Sharron’s support on the vital issue of women and girls’ safety in sport, because she is hugely respected for her principled campaigning on this topic.  

“Most of the public think it’s simple common sense that only biological females should be allowed to compete in women-only competitions.  

“It is about equality of opportunity – we must never allow female athletes to be marginalised.  

“Yet, from Parkrun to the Paralympics, we are seeing the erosion of fair and safe sport for women – and that’s why we must all stand up against this.  

“I hope the majority of MSPs from other parties, who voted for the SNP’s gender self-ID policy in parliament, grasp that, and back my motion.”