By Marty York, May 14, 2026
At the outset of my career as a teenaged sports journalist with The Globe and Mail in the 1970s, I was assigned to write about a US tennis player who competed as a man but then became widely known following a male-to-female medical transformation and sought to participate in the 1976 US Open.
I remember interviewing Renée Richards after she challenged a policy that the US Tennis Association introduced, requiring genetic screening for female players. Richards took the matter to the New York State Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of the complainant. It was a landmark decision and set the standard for transgender women in female sports. Richards wound up advancing to the final of the US Open in the women’s doubles category in 1977.
“I hope that this sets a precedent,” Richards told me back then. “There are many men who would like to, and need to, transition to women, and I hope this ruling clears the path for them.”
Indeed, it did.
In December of 2024, and updated in March of 2026, a writer named Cyd Zigler at www.outsports.com listed 29 biologically male trans athletes who have won state, national, or international titles in women’s sports, including Ana Caldas, who won five national championships swimming in the women’s 45–59 age category, and Laurel Hubbard, who won two Commonwealth championships in weightlifting, and many other gold medals.
The question, however, is and has been this for decades: Is it fair for biologically male transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports? A host of recent scientific reports verify what most of us inherently know to be true – that male trans athletes enjoy physiological advantages that give them a leg up on biologically female athletes.
Women’s organized and professional sports were created for a specific, legitimate reason – to provide women athletes the opportunity to test themselves in fair competition against their peers on as level a playing field as can realistically be achieved.
Fans of women’s sports also prefer seeing biological women compete against each other. Here, there, and everywhere, from the WNBA (which recently expanded into Canada) to women’s professional and international hockey, female sports leagues are soaring in popularity.
Allowing biological men, with their undeniable advantages in strength, speed and endurance, to compete against biological females undermines the progress being made in women’s sports and indeed, harms female athletes – physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
Dr. Gregory Brown, a professor of exercise science at the University of Nebraska who has produced more than 60 peer-reviewed publications for academic journals, reported in January of this year that “Female athletes have been injured and deprived of roster spots, starting positions, awards and championships in their own category, all due to the mistaken belief that a transgender identity somehow negates the well-documented performance advantages conferred by male sex.”
At every level, from school sports to the Olympics to the pros, opportunities for success for females have been diminished when transgender individuals are permitted to participate in their competitions. As Brown notes, female athletes have lost scholarships, medals, playing spots, and even top salaries as pros, when their sports have been co-opted by male trans athletes.
Brown cited a book by Lady Sharron Davies, Unfair Play: The Battle for Women’s Sport, which documents how what was once an unthinkable proposition – males competing in women’s athletics – became official International Olympic Committee policy in 2015 and a major political controversy thereafter. “Taken together,” Brown wrote, “these works offer a clear account of not only what has happened, but how it happened, and why science has been both deployed and distorted along the way.”
Let me share a story about a 13-year-old girl whose parents I know well and whose athletic prowess, particularly on the volleyball court, is recognized by many involved in school sports in Southern Ontario. This young lady, whose name I will withhold for privacy reasons, has excelled on the volleyball court for several years at her Southern Ontario school. Her promising development in volleyball ended when a boy at her school – who identifies as a girl – was given a spot on the girls’ team. Soon afterwards, the girl’s playing time was cut in favour of the trans athlete’s. Dejected, she eventually quit the team.
“It just doesn’t seem right, or fair,” the girl told me. “I mean, he’s a boy. He obviously has advantages over girls, despite the fact that he views himself as a girl. I just don’t feel comfortable with him or her in my locker room or things like that.”
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), which describes itself as the world’s largest and most influential sports medicine and exercise science organization, released a statement in September of 2023 proclaiming that adult males are faster, stronger, and more powerful than females because of fundamental sex differences in anatomy and physiology dictated by sex chromosomes.
ACSM found that, before puberty (approximately prior to 12 years of age), sex differences in athletic performance are minimal. However, significant differences emerge at puberty due to anabolic effects of testosterone in males. Testosterone levels rise 20- to 30-fold in males during puberty and are 15 times higher in males by age 18.
Influenced by US President Donald Trump, who has not only been vociferously opposed to biological males in women’s sports but to transgender procedures in general, the International Olympic Committee recently introduced a new policy requiring mandatory sex testing for all female athletes before the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Those proven to be biologically male will not be permitted to participate in the women’s competitions at the 2028 Olympics, the IOC says.
This has sparked more controversy and debate. The Los Angeles Times, for instance, argued in late April that the policy will force women to “prove their bodies in ways that are invasive, unfair and unnecessary.”
The Times wrote: “Many headlines focused on one point: banning transgender women. But that misses the bigger story. The policy puts every woman’s body under a microscope and creates a system in which officials decide who is ‘woman enough’ to compete.”
The Times reported that 1 in 50 people are born with natural variations in their sex traits, so, the paper suggested that “many young women will be disqualified because they have such variations – and many of them don’t even know it.”
A nice try, perhaps, by the IOC. However, not all women athletes are pleased with the new policy. Some fear that the tests themselves could be faulty, while others worry they will be too invasive (the test involves a simple cheek swab).
As someone who has both followed and written about sports for decades, I believe women’s sports becomes tainted when it allows biological males to participate. I am certainly an advocate of freedom and equality for all. But there is nothing equal about transgender males in women’s sports. The advantage – biologically speaking and scientifically established – is all theirs.
It’s time to end the debate. This is not an issue of “inclusion versus exclusion.” The only issue that matters is fairness to women. They deserve the right to compete against their peers on a level playing field free of men, period.
Marty York is renowned nationally for his decades as a sports writer, columnist and associate sports editor with The Globe and Mail. For the past decade, he has served as chief media officer and communications director for B’nai Brith Canada.
