The Real Problem with Exclusion in Sports

Beyond Trans Rights

This letter began as a response to the exclusion of trans women from a series of trail races. But it has grown into a broader examination of the systemic injustices caused by exclusion, which always hit the most vulnerable women hardest. By asking a tiny minority of runners to sit out under the guise of safety, SheRaces shows us a global truth: policing women—whether through tests or definitions—is a form of control that harms us all.

This is not a call to arms. It’s an invitation to have the conversation that truly matters—the one at the heart of trans participation in sports. If this resonates, please share or comment below.

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Dear SheRaces,

I am writing on behalf of a small, but strong, caring, engaged and proud group. We are Queer Runnings.

We are writing concerning your decision to exclude transgender women from participating in the SheRaces trail series.

We are not writing to ask you to change your mind. We are not writing for a fight, to pick over details and accuse you of things based on what we assume, through bitter, disappointing experience to be true.

We are not writing because we think your race is unfair. We are not stomping our feet and demanding the right to participate.

We are not writing because excluding trans women from your race is just a concern in the same way taped seams on a mandatory kit list is a concern. Because excluding trans women is not as simple as just asking a small minority of folks to kindly sit this one out.

We understand that your aim is to hold a race that uplifts and supports all women (but not trans women). We understand that you want an event that feels safe even for minority groups of women to take part. We understand that women, particularly those at the most vulnerable intersections are the ones who need support and safe spaces most of all.

We understand, both personally and in a wider societal and statistical context women suffer harm at the hands of some men. We understand that this is a deeply emotive issue, and that violence or the threat of violence against women by men needs to be spoken about and stopped. Women deserve to be safe in sport, and everywhere else.

We are Queer athletes. We are one of those minorities who are standing at a delicate intersection. We, like all women, are suffering both at the hands of abusive men, and also from policies such as yours.

We are all hurting.

And this is why we are writing.

We are writing to ask for clarification. Your announcement is harmful, and its consequences are far-reaching. These effects are not hypothetical—they are happening right now.

We are writing to call you out. We see you. We see Ourea, standing by you, keeping quiet. We see you UK Athletics, World Athletics, The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and all the many other race organisers, governing bodies and sporting organisations who have chosen their own definition of “woman” to run with, test for and measure women up against. Inspecting, shaming and harming all women.

We are writing because it is not fair that you should get away with perpetuating what is a systemic policing of women; all the while pleading ignorance. Pretending you are uplifting, supporting and providing for women. Proclaiming to have made a space where women are safe and free from those who wish them ill. The irony is not lost on us.

Let's begin.

Shortly after you launched the SheRaces series in December 2024, you admitted that your women only event actually meant a cis women only event. That trans women would not be welcome. Not making this distinction clear in the initial announcement was a considerable safety oversight for a very disempowered and at risk minority. But whatever; you decided on a rule for your race: No trans women are allowed to participate in SheRaces events.

We want to know how you intend to filter out transgender applicants.

Whether through wilful noncompliance, or by genuine mistake, if you consider trans women an actual threat to the safety of your participants, this is a question that must be answered.

As we see it, this could go one of several different ways.

You could do nothing. You have made your statement, and you can sit back and trust that trans women comply. In order to stop people worrying you could wave a hand and say that you will remain watchful, make sure no one slips through the net.

But doing nothing, or the bare minimum, only gives rise to further questions.

The IOC, UK and World Athletics and others are on the look out for trans women too. But they are quite a lot more upfront about it. They have made transparent and public statements about what they believe. They have written themselves a definition of “woman” and found a scientific stick to measure all women up-against.

You have made a rule, but you have not told us how you plan to enforce it.

At the risk of giving you a list of potential definitions and tests with a Queer Runnings stamp of approval. Here are some things that we think you could do:

An amateur race such as yours is unlikely to have the means to test hormone levels or chromosomes. Visual checks of genitals or internal organs are unthinkable.

You could ask for a doctor's note. I am not sure how many women would feel great about this. And as well as making women mad, it might exclude those who can’t afford such a note, or those who might struggle with the steps to acquire and submit one.

If you chose to define “womanhood” based on appearance - long hair, certain clothing, body shapes, this approach would inevitably target the most vulnerable women disproportionately: poor women, neurodivergent women, Muslim women, queer women, women with masculine builds, and on and on.

Nothing here feels like it is quite the right solution.

And this is exactly the problem with trying to define something as vast and simultaneously culturally relative; as general and at the same time specific as “woman”. Whatever criteria you choose, you end up reducing women to arbitrary standards that punish anyone who doesn’t conform.

Take for example Imane Khelif. The 2024 Olympic medal winning boxer. Or Barbra Banda, 2024 Footballer of the Year. Both of these women were measured in arbitrary tests, satisfying someone-or-others definition of woman, and passed. Huzzah. They proved their status.

Yet they were still the victims of abuse and hatred, ridicule and scrutiny on a global scale.

The fact that any criteria, any test exists, legitimises their abuse. It signals to the general public that a person's gender is fair game for debate and judgement. That speculation and taunting is ok. Because if something as big as the IOC can ask the question: is this person really a woman? Then it's ok for me to ask too.

As you can see, the very idea of policing a definition of “gender” is not keeping women safe.

So perhaps criteria and tests are not key to all this.

Perhaps just doing nothing, and sitting on the side lines would be easier. At least that way any action and therefore blame would be attributed to a harmful individual, a safe distance away from the SheRaces directorate, and any collective responsibility.

But think about what this would actually mean. One person, or group of individuals would be tasked with selecting runners from a crowd based on a subjective judgment. Who looks “too masculine” or “not woman enough”?

These decisions, whether conscious or not, are steeped in personal biases. And as with all profiling, judgement will not fall equally on all women. Women of colour, queer women, women with disabilities, or women whose appearances don’t conform to narrow stereotypes of femininity are far more likely to be scrutinised or excluded.

Policing using personal bias to pick out trans women, like all inequitable policing, creates an unsafe, unwelcoming environment for all women.

It is not surprising that Khelif is a woman of colour. And although she practices the same sport and has passed the same tests as her white opponents, it was Khelif who was treated as a dangerous interloper, whose hormones, and chromosomes and internal organs and body shape and upbringing and family were put under a microscope. It was not her white opponent who was publicly humiliated, it was Khelif woman of colour, Muslim woman and on and on.

If SheRaces is not transparent about the criteria they are using to remain vigilant, if it is one person's general feeling, and if you are not testing every woman who enters, you are or are very close to, profiling entrants based on protected characteristics. And this makes for some potentially, very hot water.

At the end of the day, you are free to apply whatever rules you want to your race. And no one is being forced to sign up.

But SheRaces is not operating in a vacuum. Your policy is part of a much larger system of exclusion. Its harm does not diminish because this is a relatively small amateur event.

The size or scope of a race does not absolve it of responsibility. Policies that single out marginalised groups create ripple effects of scrutiny, judgment, and control that must always be challenged, no matter how “small” they seem.

The truth is, safety for women doesn’t come from division and exclusion. It doesn’t come from deciding which women belong and which don’t.

It comes from addressing the real, systemic roots of harm. Roots that your policy ignores while pretending to solve.

If your goal is truly to empower women, then you need to rethink what empowerment means. We don’t need more rules dividing women or segregating spaces. We need systems that make it possible for all of us - women, men and non-binary people, cis and trans alike - to run and ultimately live in safety.

Until then, policies like yours will keep us colliding, stagnating, and stuck in conflict, not moving forward together. Nothing will get any better, and women deserve better. All of us deserve better.

Sincerely yours,

Queer Runnings