Transcript part 2:
JG: Well that is the view of Dr Beth Jones. Dr Nicola Williams runs the campaign organisation I mentioned, Fair Play For Women, and has a professional background in biology and biochemistry. And just to emphasise again, Beth and Nicola were quite happy to talk to each other, we just couldn't make it work logistically, so no problem there. Nicola, can we just agree on Beth's final point, that actually sport is a positive, and when it's inclusive it's rather brilliant?
Nicola Williams: Yes, and women and girls are underrepresented in sport, and we certainly need to increase participation for women and girls, and that's another reason why there's a threat to that when transwomen are potentially competing against women.
JG: Is it a given that someone with lots of testosterone will out-perform somebody who lacks huge amounts of testosterone?
NW: Well, Beth's analysis is correct, in that there are very few good, robust studies looking at the performance of transwomen before and after transition. So she's correct there, but unfortunately her conclusions are badly wrong here, and, I mean, I think Beth's missing the elephant in the room really, which is that transwomen have a male body. And so the question needs to be - do transwomen bring male physical advantage to female competitive sports? And in the absence of the evidence to the contrary, we have to presume - yes.
JG: Why do we have to presume yes?
NW: Because they are male bodies and we don't need science to tell us that male bodies are ... have an advantage in sport, you know, common sense. Just looking at some of the facts, like ... the fastest woman sprinter ever has never reached under ten seconds. Now, that means that no woman would ever qualify for a men's sprint race at the Olympics, for example. Serena Williams would be expected to be at, say, 700th in the male seeds. Paula Radcliffe, marathon runner - 500th in the male rankings. So, you know, there's not - it's not that Paula Radcliffe just doesn't push herself far enough. Her body is female and there's a limit there, and male people have the benefit of not just testosterone at the time, they have the benefit of having developed since puberty with testosterone, so that their bodies are bigger, their skeletons are a different size ...
JG: Yes, OK ...
NW: ... all sorts of advantages.
JG: ... right, but as Beth, and who isn't here, and I keep - need to emphasise this, Beth was not unwilling to talk directly to Nicola, we just couldn't make that happen. Beth isn't here to defend herself, I suppose - one way of putting it. The fact that you say, quite categorically, that the fact that testosterone has existed means that its impact will continue to be felt ... how can we be certain that you're right there? Where's the research into that?
NW: Well, the issue is, is that there isn't research either way, so we have to take the most sensible conclusion, which is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we have to presume that a male body is still advantageous.
JG: Even you say we have to presume, you don't - as you freely admit the research isn't quite there.
NW: Yep, and I would love there to be resea - I mean we really need - I mean I would recommend that we put a moratorium on the use of - the participation of transwomen in sports until we get that evidence, because as soon as we can tell what the levels of testosterone need to be, perhaps, for a transwoman to be able to compete fairly, until we know that, it's not fair to put that onto women.
JG: I guess also, and you mentioned right at the very beginning, and it's something we've often talked about on this programme, the relatively low participation rate of women and girls won't exactly - it won't go up if women and girls are going to be beaten all the time. That's one of the possibilities, isn't it?
NW: It is, it's a major possibility, and you know, we've got to ask ourselves why do male and female sports exist anyway? You know, why don't we have mixed sports? And the reason we have females competing separately is to give them a sporting chance, you know, to give them meaningful competition. So female sport showcases and celebrates, really, the best of what a female body, you know, can do. So if we allow basically a subset of male people to participate in female sports, that completely undermines the purpose and motivation behind female sports and women and girls will simply miss out on places, and they will leave the - leave sports in their droves, you know, at both the professional level and in the recreational level, because there will be no fun or fairness in women's sport anymore, if girls are having to compete, essentially against male bodied people.
JG: The truth is that most of us are nowhere near being brilliant athletes. We're built one way, and actually the successful sports people, regardless of their gender, are ... I was going to say anomalies - they're strange, aren't they? They have physical capabilities the rest of us couldn't get close to. They have more in common with each other than they have with the rest of us, surely?
NW: Well there's still a major difference between the best female and the best male. You know, there is a well known performance gap between males and females at elite sports, so you know, they don't actually have that much in common. That's why we have male and female sports. I mean, just going back to this unfairness issue with people that are maybe training, you know, or just recreational, you know, I had a conversation with a mother that contacted me, worried because her daughter, teenage daughter's really involved in sports and training and she wants to be the best, she wants to get to the Olympics. But her mother knows that, you know, those hopes could just be dashed if a transwoman was to compete in her category and that, you know, that's the dreams of the girl being smashed. So we really do have to weigh up the ...
JG: Yeah, I mean that's a slightly verging on apocalyptic vision of the female sporting future in which every competition is naturally won by a transwoman. We're not actually talking about that as a possibility, seriously, are we?
NW: Well, I actually think we are. Let's look at some examples. So we've got Rachel McKinnon ...
JG: A cyclist who you referred to earlier, yep ...
NW: ... a cyclist who is a - who is now a world champion in her category on track cycling. Now, Rachel McKinnon transitioned when she was 29 and, within two years, went from newbie to world champion. We've got Hannah Mouncey - Hannah, when she was a man, played in handball at Olympic level, in handball for Australia. Hannah is now - has transitioned to a woman and plays in the women's team. Now, Hannah is still very large and very muscley and it's clear that that's dangerous. In fact, Hannah has actually broken the leg of a female competitor for example.
JG: Right, OK, I get - I mean that is one example, and I guess it won't be that difficult to find examples of that nature, but we'll have to leave it there Nicola because there are many other people of course who feel passionately on the other side. We have tried to be as fair as we possibly can in this series of conversations, all of which you can find on the various Woman's Hour podcasts, going back now for the last three weeks, all available of course on the BBC Sounds app. Nicola, good to see you, thank you very much, and our thanks too to Dr Beth Jones who we heard from earlier.