Sir, – Johnny Watterson's comments that "We've been trying to educate ourselves this week by listening to sports scientist Ross Tucker" ("Issue of transgender athletes sees rights on safety and inclusion collide," Sports, June 25th) are welcome, but women have been citing Tucker for a while now. This is not news to us.
I would appeal to Watterson to please call us what we are: women, not “cis-gender women”. We are not a sub-category of the female sex.
The rights of a “vulnerable transgender athlete who also has rights to not face discrimination” ignores the fact that this displaces the rights of women, like Kuinini “Nini” Manumua, the 21-year-old female weightlifter from New Zealand, who would have been participating in her first Olympics had she not been displaced by the 43-year-old Laurel Hubbard, who was born male.
It’s really not complicated. World Rugby has set out the science very clearly and even with testosterone suppression, men don’t lose their considerable physical advantages over women. – Yours, etc,
JILL NESBITT,
Bray, Co Wicklow.