Women’s sport & the law

For as long as there has been organised sport, where women have been permitted to participate at all, men and women have competed in separate categories. The reason is obvious: the enormous athletic advantage conferred by male puberty. Last month World Athletics announced that no athlete who had gone through male puberty would be allowed to compete in women’s world ranking competitions. UK Athletics has just followed suit.

What does the law say?

When sex discrimination was made unlawful in the UK by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA 1975), an extensive scheme of exceptions was included to deal with the many situations in which direct sex discrimination is justified and necessary. Sport was one of them: s 44, SDA 1975 simply excluded ‘any sport, game or other activity of a competitive nature where the physical strength, stamina