Why it’s not unkind to keep people born male out of women's sport – it's just fair play

Don’t get me wrong. The sight of a grinning Donald Trump surrounded by dozens of young girls in tracksuits and pony tails in the Oval Office earlier this week creeped me out. Trump may be President of the United States, but he is also a sex abuser and the man who infamously said as a “star” he could do anything to women. "Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” he once boasted.

I detest the man. But on Tuesday, he once again won plaudits from women’s rights campaigners when he signed an executive order that will keep men out of women’s sports, at least in the United States.

The order, titled simply Keeping Men out of Women’s Sport, rescinded all funds from educational programmes that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy”. It further stated that US policy is now to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports, as a matter of “safety, fairness, dignity, and truth”.

It was a theme he returned to during the signing ceremony when he said he would deny visas to transgender athletes wanting to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. “My administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes. We’re not going to let it happen,” he said.

Among the executive orders signed by Donald Trump after become US President was one entitled, 'Keeping Men out of Women’s Sport' (Picture: Anna Moneymaker) | Getty Images

His comment appeared to be a reference to Imane Khelif, the controversial Algerian boxer who won a gold medal in women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics last year. Khelif claims to be female, but failed the International Boxing Association’s sex eligibility test two years ago and is not eligible to take part in next month’s Women’s World Boxing Championships in Serbia.

Trump’s order was hugely popular with the American public, with a CNN poll showing that 79 per cent of the population opposed transgender female athletes in women’s sport. “You rarely get 79 per cent of the country to agree on anything,” declared the presenter as he unveiled the poll.

Not pro-women, but anti-trans

Sporting figures on both sides of the Atlantic were equally as enthusiastic about the ban, if not President Trump. Tennis legend Martina Navratilova – a long-time Democrat – has made her position clear for months.

Her pinned post on X/Twitter says: “I lived in a totalitarian authoritarian country growing up and I will not vote for that now or ever. Trump is not pro-women... he is against all things trans. A big difference. I support trans people but not male bodies in women’s sex-based spaces. Simple.”

And former British Olympic swimming star Sharron Davies called on the Prime Minister to follow Trump’s lead. She wrote on X: “Please Keir Starmer can you now do as you said you would and protect all female athletes here in the UK in sport and stop males from stealing their places, awards & increasing their risk of injury? Sex in sport really matters…”

She also pointed out that Trump’s order did not ban transgender athletes from sport “… just males from sports for females. Huge difference,” she wrote.

‘Desperately unfair’

Conservative MSP Tess White, a second-dan karate black belt, has long campaigned for single-sex categories in women’s sport to be protected. In October last year, she led a debate at Holyrood emphasising the importance of safe and fair sport for women.

Speaking this week, she said: “I know all too well the risks of putting women and girls in harm’s way. It is desperately unfair that for every male in the female category, a female is excluded, which means another dream destroyed. Safety and fairness in women’s sport have triumphed in the United States with the stroke of a pen. Scotland must be similarly ambitious and stand up for female athletes from grass-roots to elite level.”

Football, Scotland’s national game – some say obsession – would be a good place to start. While Scottish Rugby has adopted a policy limiting contact rugby for players in the women’s category to “those whose sex was recorded as female at birth”, soccer’s national body, the Scottish FA, seems indifferent to the issue, apparently because none of the senior women players have made a fuss.

Alison Weir, of campaign group For Women Scotland Sport, says while it is gratifying that the US government has stood up for fair and safe sport, it is time that Scottish football chiefs did the same.

“Many sports have acted already,” she said, “but it seems that neither Fifa – football’s governing body – nor the Scottish FA are prepared to act. I understand that this is because they do not have lines of first and second-tier footballers demanding change, but surely the Scottish FA should stand up and support the women’s game because it is the right thing to do.”

Football a game for both sexes, separately

Women’s football has soared in popularity in recent years, with tens of thousands of women and girls now signed up with the Scottish FA, making up 14 per cent of all registered grassroots players. The association does its best to encourage support for the national women’s team. In their forthcoming game against the Netherlands at Hampden on 25 February, children go free.

Football is no longer the sole preserve of blokes. But under the current rules, a man or teenage boy could join a female club if he said he was transgender and that is simply not fair, nor safe. Women are fed up being told to "be kind".

Football is a contact sport and male physiology means that men are stronger and physically more powerful than women. And every man who takes up a place in a women’s football team puts a woman on the bench. Football may be a game of two halves, but it is also a game for both sexes and there is no place for men in a women’s team.