1/ Today @Policy_Exchange publishes 'Levelling the Playing Field'
All women and girls - not just elite sportswomen, deserve safe and fair play. This is because men and women are physically different. This is a matter of basic biology, not rocket science.
policyexchange.org.uk/?p=34953&post_…
2/ 14m females are active in England, and most of us are not professional athletes. We are much more likely to be your mother, sister or daughter. There is a sense within policy that women in elite sport should be protected, but within the grassroots sport sector, self-ID is rife
3/ Extreme gratitude to @sharrond62, Olympic Medalist spanning three decades & tireless champion for women's sport, @Martina, widely considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time and @Daley_thompson, Olympian & World Champion Decathlete for their support of this paper
4/ I spent hours compiling data from selected swimming and athletics records from every single English county to demonstrate what I already knew: sex categories are important, because males are stronger than females. Sport should be open to all. This is why categories exist.
5/ Categories (sex, age, disability, weight) exist because they acknowledge that for people to participate in an intrinsically physical activity, the differences in human physicality must be respected. Again, not rocket science. See below.
6/ As women, we get a TINY slice of the pie within the sports as it is - from the Olympic podium to the playground. In 2022, only 13% of sports coverage across key sports channels was for female sport. A recent survey showed that girls 'feel actively marginalised' in PE class.
7/ Protecting the female category within grassroots sport matters for its own sake. Not just because the future grand slam champions, olympic swimmers and Lionesses started out this way. Because sport for the sake of participation matters. Read our testimonies to understand why.
8/ Abolishing a category as fundamental as sex in order to accommodate a category based on self-declared identity is totally illogical. Sport is not played by identities. NGBs, IFs and the IOC, as well as many in Government must do the right thing. See our recommendations here.
9/ In @Telegraph:
'Politicians on all sides must speak out for women – it really is not rocket science, but very basic biology.'
telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/2…
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