Sharron Davies has urged that transgender athletes make swimming ‘ridiculously and atrociously unfair’, as she continued to speak out against the sport’s controversial issue this week.
The ex-Great Britain swimmer has frequently and publicly expressed her concerns in relation to self-identification in sport, insisting that transgender athletes create a disadvantage for cisgender women because of their enhanced levels of testosterone.
Davies revealed the issues surrounding transgender athletes competing in sport causes her ‘a lot of frustration’ and explained the action of removing testosterone doesn’t prevent a ‘biological advantage’.
The 60-year-old previously stated in August that trans activists have targeted her children’s school after she weighed in on the debate about who can compete in women’s sport.
She is an advocate for women in sport and in her competing years was beaten to an Olympic gold medal by East German swimmer Petra Schneider, who was later revealed to have benefitted from doping.
Sharron Davies has urged that transgender athletes make swimming ‘ridiculously and atrociously unfair’
Davies (pictured) is an advocate for women in sport and previously weighed in on the debate about who can compete in women’s sport
Trans athlete Lia Thomas has previously defended herself amid criticism after beating female competitors
Davies outlined her stance on transgenders athletes competing in swimming in an interview titled ‘Sharron Davies: Mission Impossible’ with Muscle and Health.
‘The problem was, I wasn’t top, because I was competing during the East German era and lost out on gold medals to doped athletes,’ Davies said, reflecting on the injustice she experienced during her career.
‘It causes me a lot of frustration, that nothing was done about it at the time and nothing has been done since.
‘And today, what are we doing because of the bid for transgender equality? We’re literally asking young girls to start races with a known disadvantage against people that have had testosterone in their system all their lives.
‘Removing testosterone does not remove the biological advantage. It might remove a very small part of it, but it hardly removes anything. And when we are winning races by tiny, tiny margins, it’s just ridiculously unfair. It’s as if what happened to me is happening all over again. And that’s why I speak out.’
Davies, who’s book Unfair Play: The Battle For Women’s Sport has been shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, went on to explain how ‘cancel culture’ has caused her to lose a lot financially as she continues to speak out against transgender athletes in swimming.
She added: ‘Making my views public comes at a great personal cost. It’s cost me a lot financially, because cancellation culture exists, it absolutely does. And it has been extremely difficult.
The ex-Great Britain swimmer has frequently and publicly expressed her concerns in relation to self-identification in sport
Davies also explained how ‘ cancel culture ‘ has caused her to lose a lot financially
‘But I felt because I’d gone through that East Germany era the first time and nobody really spoke out for us, that I couldn’t sit by and watch a whole new generation of young girls lose out to something which was atrociously unfair.
‘Not a single peer-reviewed study shows that you can remove male puberty advantage.’
Swim England announced in April they had revised their transgender and non-binary competition policy and an ‘open’ category had been introduced for ‘athletes with a birth sex of male, trans or non-binary competitors.’