Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies will next month launch a women’s sports union with the stated aim of taking legal action against governing bodies that she argues are discriminating against female athletes.
Davies, 62, who has long campaigned for the protection of single-sex sport, revealed her plans during a discussion hosted by UnHerd and SEEN in Sport, a campaign group lobbying to keep women’s sport single-sex.
The event asked whether female athletes had been “betrayed” by current sporting policies.
“This is absolute direct sex discrimination and we need to take it on,” Davies told the audience, per The Times.
“I’ve got a foundation that’s coming online soon, probably the middle of October.
"It will absolutely be going after these governing bodies that are not looking after all of our girls and will start to get litigious with them if we have to.”
She accused sporting organisations of “throwing female recreational sport under the bus” by allowing transgender women to compete at amateur level while restricting entry to elite competitions.
Davies, who has been nominated to become a Conservative peer by equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, claimed that some of the current policy decisions were influenced by “Stonewall and DEI officers” on boards.
Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies will next month launch a women’s sports union with the stated aim of taking legal action against governing bodies that she argues are discriminating against female athletes
|GETTY
“They are 20-year-olds with purple hair, making everyone scared stiff of even saying to them, ‘this is not fair’,” she said.
“This has got to stop. We have got to bring common sense back into the boardroom and enable people to make sensible decisions.”
Davies said the new union would also lobby the government to withhold public funding from governing bodies that allow transgender women to compete in female categories.
“How can we give taxpayers’ money to sports that are discriminating against women? That must stop,” she said.
**SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY GB NEWS SPORTS NEWSLETTER HERE**
Several sporting bodies have faced criticism for their approach to transgender participation, particularly after the Supreme Court’s April ruling that the terms “man” and “woman” relate to biological sex under equality law.
The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) has faced particular scrutiny for leaving decisions about transgender inclusion in women’s events up to individual tennis clubs, while urging them to be “inclusive”.
During the discussion, Davies reiterated a comparison she has made previously between the inclusion of transgender women in female categories and East Germany’s state-sponsored doping programme.
She spoke from personal experience, having won silver in the 400m individual medley at the 1980 Moscow Olympics behind Petra Schneider, who later admitted her win was drug-assisted.
LATEST SPORTS NEWS:
Sharron Davies has long made it clear she opposes biological men competing in women's sports
| PAThe former swimmer argued that even with puberty blockers or testosterone suppression, biological males retain a physical advantage.
“We can show you through statistics that eight-year-old boys can run faster, jump higher and throw things further,” she said.
Davies added that she regularly receives emails from parents claiming their daughters are being discouraged from taking part in sport.
“One of the most heartbreaking emails I received was last summer,” she said.
Sharron Davies has revealed a harrowing story where a young girl was left in tears due to a student identifying as transgender
| GETTY“A mum wrote to me: ‘At my daughter’s primary school the headmaster decided to run co-ed races all sports day because there is an eight-year-old boy that’s decided he wants to be a girl.
"Not a single little girl won an event all sports day. Her 11-year-old daughter came home in tears, saying: ‘Why am I bothering mummy?’”
Davies concluded: “What message are we giving our little girls? We’re telling them they’re second best and not worthy of opportunity and equality.”