Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas Booted From Olympics After Losing Legal Case

genuinely genuinely very excited about my next guest um big news story today transgender swimmer Leah Thomas can't compete in the Olympics after losing a legal fight against the sports governing body one lady who has been brave enough despite criticism left right and Center to talk about this readily is Olympic medalist and author of the book unfair play the battle for women's sports I think she's a legend Sharon Davis welcome to talk Drive how are you hello Jeremy how are you I'm all right honestly I have watched from afar I I know how much you've got taken and I absolutely respect you for it I I am far more basic than anybody you've ever spoken to and I'm going to start no I'm going to start by telling you a story years because I'm very old years and years ago Billy Jean King was in a relationship with a woman called reenie Richards who I think was transgender reenie Richards as a male tennis player was ranked 412th in the world reie Richards as a female tennis player was ranked in the top 10 or 20 and I remember even at that young age thinking on a genuine this is nothing against transgender people but I remember at that young age thinking to myself how the hell is that fair and this Leah Thomas with respect is another example isn't it Sharon yeah very very similar except for Leah Thomas is 6'4 and and wasn't was not a very good swimmer I mean was nearly 600th in 1500 meter swimming in men's swimming and then transitioned and literally beat three Olympic silver medalists from America in Sprint events so that's a little bit like Mo farro deigning he wants to win the 100 I mean it really is that ridiculous and I think that it helped in lots of instances to to explain because you know a picture sort of paints a thousand words really how unfair it really was what I was trying to do by speaking out was just to try and stop as many young women losing their opportunities losing their trophies their prizes their scholarships as possible before we have to prove the blim and obvious because it is obvious you know that's why we have men and women's sport for a very obvious reason we're different in fact most 14 15 year old boy world records are faster than the Women's World Records so the moment puberty hits it makes an absolutely colossal difference and I'm very very proud that world Athletics are standing by their female athletes and and that that helps me greatly because the ioc have said we're not allowed to use any single words to explain that there's a male in the swimming pool race a female in these Olympic Games and I won't have to do that now while I in swimming so that's good because i' get myself in trouble because I'm not sure i' do that well so so explain to me treat me like the absolute idiot I am okay so they have said that somebody who has transitioned and patently physically has an advantage cannot take place it can take part in female swing can I ask something right so so if you've got male swimming and this is going to upset somebody female swimming shouldn't people who have transition to we should show huge respect to I've always shown respect to them shouldn't they all swim against each other or am I missing the point well and that's exactly what happen so when Le Thomas actually competed in the nc2a which is the collegate Championships in America they opted to compete with the women however we had several transgender men so that's biological females all gets very complicated doesn't it but biological females who identified as male but who still opted to race with the women and providing the don't know testosterone the women don't have a problem with it you know as long as there's no unfairness nobody cares what you wear what you identify as and what you call yourself so if the women can do that the men ought to be able to do that too you know this is about including men in men's races no matter how they identify so that it's actually Fair all this suppression of testosterone 10 nimals five none of it makes any sense you cannot remove male puberty Advantage whatsoever and just to make it you know extremely relevant women get 2% of the sponsorship dollar across the world we get 4% of the Prime Time air time here in the UK there's 11,000 men that earn their living from sport there's 1,000 women and you can be damn sure there's 1,000 women don't earn anywhere near what the Premiership football has earn so we have this tiny slice of the cake and now we're not even allowed to have that I mean it just it's Mar Nottingham sums up nicely she says good evening jez it shouldn't be a case of Bravery to speak up for women's rights Sharon Davis is fantastic and a light for Aur please tell her to keep on fighting the fight when you've taken on a personal note the abuse from from whatever group this week is jumping up and down when you've been called I mean you've accused the BBC's new director of sport Alex K jelski as that his name of obvious misogyny you've been very brave in your criticism and a lot of people support that but you've also taken a lot of personal hatred and angst how didd you deal with that why'd you do it yeah I mean the the the new head of BBC sport R in AR in the times in 2019 where he called Martina and myself not expert enough to talk about the subject and between us we have 100 years of Elite Sport you know she's won 40 Grand Slams as you mentioned reny renie was her coach right so she was coached by a transgender woman uh she came out as gay in the early 80s and took all the flat for that I've won medals in pretty much every championships written a book on the subject which has won all sorts of awards you kind of go what what do I need to do to be qualified to talk about um defending women's sport and then on top of that which is the thing that I take the most offense of in this article he wrote that Ethiopian women and Caribbean women have the same advantage that men do when they race women and to me that's an extremely racist comment he draws parallels and I have a mixed race daughter who does track and field so I'm extremely offended by the fact that he should lump you know black women in with having a genetic Advantage the same as men have a genetic Advantage the category is women it's a sex category it's not a race category or a color category or what lipstick color you're wearing today it is a biological sex category and however you identify we want to have you all racing and competing just just race fair you know I want to see Leo Thomas racing but it just needs to be fair um in terms of sports women you talk there about Martin and aarat Lova are you a heroin to them for speaking out or does some shun you because they don't want to rock the boat um no I I have very distressed parents and very distressed athletes and coaches on the phone every single week and and a lot of it breaks my heart um one of the ones I find the most difficult to deal with when I get parents who have got children that are now self Haring in the world of football because they're having their places stolen we've got 75 males identifying in the women's fa League that are stealing places none funny enough in the men's league doing the same thing and I had a a parent of an 11-year-old girl who loves sport her school because they were frightened of trans activists decided to run a sports day where they had no categories it was just one race for everybody and not a single little girl won an event that day at school so what message are we giving our little girls in what already is a very tough place for little girls in the world right now it just breaks my heart and that's why I'm not prepared to give up you know fighting to to just have Fair sport for them that's all I've just had a baby daughter you're number six more than Boris Johnson don't say anything you well I don't quite know how your own football team soon well mate listen I'm 58 it shouldn't work anymore but it does I'm 61 that doesn't work you are not 6 you sh you are not 61 are you really I am 61 I'll tell you something mate you've made my bleeding day I thought about 40 something but the truth is you're absolutely right it's it's I mean I the reason I do this is I mean I have I have a 21y old we have this discussion the whole time she says to me you know we have different opinions I say that's absolutely fine but what I will not give up on and I say it to her I am not going to be told that everything that your granny and Granddad taught me is a load of old rubbish I am not going to go down the route of thinking that everything that I thought was okay yes we should absolutely be exclusive and and all those things but we've gone the other way we've become a nation of box tickers who are too terrified to even speak out for fear of affecting or upsetting and it's that Minority it's that activist lot that jump on the back of anything whether it's just St o or trans rights or I mean that that just op o I saw an amazing interview the other day I think it was your James well and he said to this ranting unwashed 20-year-old what would you do if I came and threw orange powder at your wedding and she went well that would be a disgrace it's the same thing and I I I'm with you you know trans gender people transgender people should be able to perform in sport but you cannot expect people to train all their lives and do everything and to be then placed at a disadvantage it's not fair no it's not fair you know and and it is a career now it's not a hobby you know this is a job opportunity and we wouldn't do this to someone who wanted to be an accountant or a doctor or you know a lawyer I mean and Sport now is is a career choice and I think also I really worry right now at at the fact that we're losing the definition of female we're losing the definition of words it's really important that we can clarify the equality act on an airplane the other day and British Airways won't say good morning ladies and gentlemen they're not allowed to say that I mean Hest I mean I'm like we're getting a bit fragile aren't we you know it's ridiculous really we are at our AG but I tell you something I tell you stats I will keep fighting I don't know and listen you are you you are my heroin sorry can we just go back there because I'm terrified about next year I'm terrified of being 60 tell me what it's like what Happ what happened Shaz what happened I I kind of went into mourning I have to say all my friends wanted to do a party I'm go no no no no but actually it's just a number Jeremy it's just a number okay well listen you're an Olympic gold medalist and very successful really really appreciate you being on and I'm very very grateful as a lot of people should be that you fight the fight you do

Channel: TalkTV

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Keywords: talkradio, talk radio, news, uk, politics, debate, free speech, freedom of expression, talk tv, live, live news, talktv live, talk tv live, talktv, talk radio live, talk radio tv, talk v litve, talkTV, talkradio tv, talkradiotv, julia, julia hartley-brewer, jhb, woman, women, man, men, trans, transgedner, transgender, transwoman, transman, trans debate, gender debate, gender, clash, sharron davies, leah thomas olympics, lia thomas olympics

Id: arcIhJJd5Jg

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2024