The British Rowing Federation will ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s competitions, to ensure “fair competition”, it announced on Thursday.
Only people ‘declared female at birth’ will be able to take part in women’s races and represent Great Britain or England in international competitions, British Rowing said in a statement.
A new category of competition will be open specifically to transgender and non-binary athletes.
The Federation is “committed to promoting an environment in which rowing is accessible and inclusive” and wishes to ensure “opportunity” for all, she said.
For this, she wanted to establish conditions “which guarantee fair competition” by “imposing necessary and proportionate restrictions”.
Before British Rowing, the British Cycling Federation had already taken a similar step in May, choosing to divide the races into “open” and “women’s” categories, the former being reserved in particular for transgender and non-binary people.
Their previous rules required runners to demonstrate low testosterone levels for twelve months prior to competition in order to compete. A measure taken to “guarantee equal opportunities” between competitors.
At the international level, at the end of 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gave up establishing uniform guidelines as to the criteria for the participation of intersex and transgender athletes, leaving the hand to the federations.
Since then, World Athletics has for example decided to exclude transgender people from women’s competitions and the International Swimming Federation has decided to prohibit people who have had male puberty from participating in women’s competitions.
In July, it was the turn of the International Cycling Union (UCI) to ban female transgender athletes who had made their transition after puberty from international competitions.
For its part, the International Rowing Federation, World Rowing, still allows transgender women to participate in the women’s category if their testosterone levels are low enough.