Should women be awarded medals if they lost to Transwomen in UK sport since 2010?

[Willandra]

Hello,

So the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Equality Act 2010 means biological women when it refers to women's sex-based protections and women's single sex spaces including women's sport.

Does that mean that sporting organisations that allowed Transwomen to compete in women's sport were breaking the Equality Act? And have been since 2010?

Do you think women who lost out to Transwomen in UK sports since 2010 should now be awarded medals they would have otherwise won? Not necessarily stripping the Trans athletes like drug cheats, but acknowledging the sporting bodies got it wrong...?

YANBU for yes, that's not unreasonable to give the women the medals.

YABU for leave sports results unchanged

Cheers (first time starting a thread! 😋)

How many decades did those take... Also, not a smooth process either.

I agree that court cases will sort this out.

I am looking forward to it. Because at the moment, there seems an awful lot of interpretations of the ruling about the EA from the very groups of people who were misinterpreting it in the first place.

I am spending the weekend reading the interpretations of the ruling from the people who had the correct interpretation of the EA in the first place. If the word 'female' and 'woman' is used for a category, does it need a judgement by a court in the UK to clarify whether or not there is still the ability to actively 'include' those who are male.

Either way, sports would fall under the EA2010 and in light of the ruling, female athletes should be again applying pressure to sporting organisations to ensure that the EA2010 exceptions are applied.

At all levels of sport. If a sporting organisation wishes to have mixed sex sports, that is their choice. If they wish to have inclusive events, that is their choice. But female athletes at grass roots level still should have access to single sex sports events if that is what they want to compete in.

Bring it on. The sooner there is absolute clarity, the better.

Can I just clarify something for those with knowledge on this, going forward sporting events will either need to be split male and female based on biological sex because presumably the event organisers are taking advantage of the rule in the equalities act that states the default of mixed sex provision can be altered where it is proportionate eg on grounds of protecting women’s safety, dignity etc, otherwise men could claim discrimination for not being allowed in the womens group,

So now sporting events will need to be mixed sex or split based on biological sex.

Sorry if I’ve got some of the terms/laws confused - just trying to get this point straight in my own mind and making sure I understand the implications for organising anything.

Thank you

I’m interested to know if such a league could continue to penalise female players who refused to play against male people, which is what happens now.

Again I can’t see how as that would be D or ID sex discrimination too.

But as this thread shows, often things are not made compliant with the law until they’re dragged kicking and screaming! It’s particularly difficult for non profit bodies without access to good legal advice but as we have seen, even the NHS and major enterprises who could get good legal advice have allowed themselves to be persuaded by the likes of Stonewall. Disappointing. And a failure on the part of the regulators.

For those who haven't seen it, this is the relevant guidance in the EQA 2010 -

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/14/5

And it's also not just about whether someone won. It's about the safety of participants, specifically women.

Anyone trotting out the 'it was only a few', how many is acceptable? And how many women and girls have missed out, not just on podiums but opportunities, scholarships etc?

And it wasn't just a few - www.shewon.org

(Edited to correct link address)

Not necessarily. I don't think there is anything in this ruling that forces organisations to have segregated facilities for men and women or sports to have separate competitions for men and women. The ruling is that if there are separate competitions, facilities or services for women, they are restricted to women-women and not trans-women. But the ruling doesn't mean there has to be provision provided for both sexes separately unless there is some other requirement or overwhelming need. A rape crisis centre could legitimately divide their services to keep female victims away from male victims. Public services like the NHS have their own obligations.

The point is where provision is made for women, transwomen are now to be excluded. It doesn't mean if no separate provision for women is made, it needs to be. Sports would usually fall under this category. There are plenty of examples of women competing against men in sports such as horse racing, motorsport, darts, snooker, poker or bowling. There's no obligation for this to end.

But take the F1 Academy series as an example. Let's assume they adopt this ruling (they're probably not though I imagine they're not a British organisation). The series already existed as a women-only series, using Formula 4 cars. The ruling now is that transwomen can't compete. It doesn't mean there now have to be all-female series equivalent to F3, F2 and F1.

Ah thank you, this is what I was asking- sorry if I wasn’t clear. So where a sporting competition has separate categories for men and women only biological women can enter the women’s competition otherwise it needs to be open so as not to discriminate against men or undermine the reason for having separate categories

Thanks for that explanation:)

Thanks to everyone who has replied :)