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LONDON. — Forget Centre Court, St Andrews or Wembley. The biggest battles in this summer of sport are being fought over in the boardrooms and backrooms, as federations wrestle with the thorniest question of all: should transgender women be allowed to participate in female sport?

For years most have regarded the issue as too dangerous to touch: the sporting equivalent of playing pass the parcel with a live grenade. Now, though, they have no choice. The emergence of elite trans women, such as the weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, the swimmer Lia Thomas and the cyclist Emily Bridges, has seen to that. Decisions are having to be made. Hard choices, too.

On Sunday swimming’s global body, FINA, created a seismic ripple when it voted to bar trans women from international female competition. Its argument, in short, was that swimmers such as Thomas retain significant physical advantages — in endurance, power, speed, strength and lung size – from undergoing male puberty even if testosterone is later suppressed. 

The science backs that up. Research from the biologists Emma Hilton and Tommy Lungberg on the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women “consistently show very modest changes (which) typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months treatment”. 

Another study from Joanna Harper, a trans woman at Loughborough University, also found that “strength may well be preserved in trans women during the first three years of hormone therapy”. 

But the decision of both swimming and rugby league in the past 48 hours to bar trans women from international competition does not necessarily mean that the majority of sports will follow suit. 

World Athletics is the most likely, given Sebastian Coe’s comments on Monday that “fairness is non-negotiable” and “biology trumps identity”. But after that the situation is murky — with most sports still using some form of testosterone limits, for all their flaws, to permit trans women to compete in the female category. Last Friday, for instance, cycling’s governing body, the UCI, opted to ride down a different path. It, too, accepts that the science shows that trans women have an advantage. But it says some unfairness to females in sport is acceptable in exchange for being inclusive. Cycling’s new policy says cyclists such as Bridges can compete in the female category only if they keep their testosterone below 2.5ml for 24 months. But, in a crucial and under-reported passage, it also states that fair competition is not essential. “It may not be necessary, or even possible, to eliminate all individual advantages held by a transgender,” the UCI writes in a policy document. “It is paramount, however, that all athletes competing have a chance to succeed, albeit not necessarily an equal chance and in line with the true essence of sport.”

Understandably women’s groups are angry, regarding such an approach as unscientific and unfair. The Consortium on Female Sport, a coalition of campaign groups in seven countries including the US and UK, has called it “nothing more than a fig leaf”, adding that “there is no science to support this policy”.

The group is also calling on sports federations — which are largely dominated by men — to include “meaningful consultation with female athletes in the sport in question” before deciding on their transgender policies.  — The Guardian