It's striking to compare this coverage of her talking about periods affecting female athletes to the interview D A-S gave to the Telegraph 6 days ago that covered transwomen and male DSD participation in women's sport.
I understand her wanting to be nuanced, respectful and considered, and to avoid the toxic abuse that other female athletes have had. So I don't criticise her at all, but I hate the way women are not allowed to speak as freely as they need to about female sport (and all the other places where genderwoo is rife).
www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2022/08/13/dina-asher-smith-exclusive-what-must-happen-sports-gender-row/
So it is with some trepidation, as we talk at a Brands Hatch hotel near her home in Kent, that I broach the issue of transgender and intersex women in athletics. Their eligibility to compete is a fraught but hugely significant debate for track and field this year. Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, has already indicated that he favours a ban, arguing: “Biology trumps gender.”
A final decision is due to be reached in November, with potentially major implications for the women’s 200 metres, Asher-Smith’s main event. Two of her fastest rivals, Namibia’s Beatrice Masilingi and Aminatou Seyni of Niger, have been determined as having differences in sexual development, with naturally high testosterone levels. Both have been banned from the 400m but are allowed to race in the 200, with World Athletics’ scientific studies suggesting that elevated testosterone confers less of a performance advantage over the shorter distance.
Against this backdrop, I ask Asher-Smith whether enough is being done to protect the integrity of the female category in sport. “It’s a very good question,” she says. “It’s a very good way of putting it. It needs a lot more research on both sides, frankly. It’s such an important question. It transcends sport. It’s way beyond sport. So, take it outside the sporting context. It’s something we’re grappling with as a society. It needs completely open thinking, so that you can understand everything. You need to have every single fact possible, before you draw any conclusions. I would love to see so much more research, removed from any bias, so that we truly understand the whole situation. I still think that we don’t.”
The answer is measured and respectful. And yet for several minutes after the tape has stopped, she agonises over whether any of her words could be misconstrued. It is an illustration both of how white-hot the controversy has become and of her own sensitivity to nuance.