From pool to track: disputes over trans athletes mustn’t make everyone a loser

If you want a case study of how not to handle the question of transgender athletes in sport, look to the treatment of British cyclist Emily Bridges. As a talented male junior, Bridges won three silver medals at national championships and seemed destined for the Olympics.

Bridges came out as trans in 2020 but had continued to participate in men’s events while transitioning. Having sufficiently reduced her testosterone levels, she became eligible to compete in women’s races. Her first such race would have been yesterday at the National Omnium Championships alongside the likes of five-time Olympic champion Laura Kenny.

Bridges’s inclusion raised considerable controversy. Then, on Thursday, cycling’s global governing body, the UCI, ruled that she was ineligible as she is still registered as a male cyclist and cannot compete as a woman until that registration expires.

It’s a situation unfair both to Bridges and other women riders. Having raised Bridges’s expectations and led many women riders to fear unfair competition, she was barred at the last minute – but only on a technicality. Currently, once Bridges is no longer registered as a male, she will be eligible to race in women’s events. And the whole debate will begin again.

Bridges’s case closely follows another controversy, when last month Lia Thomas became the first transgender woman to win the US college swimming championship. At the heart of these debates – and not just in sports – is the distinction between sex and gender. Sex refers to an individual’s biological traits, such as their chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs; gender to social ideas about “masculinity” and “femininity” and of male and female roles. Transgender people have a sense of their gender