Olympian Sharron Davies speaks out on trans activists who have 'made my life hell'

In an interview with You magazine, Olympian swimmer Sharron Davies reveals how her advocacy to prevent males from competing in women’s sports categories has caused her great financial distress. Davies describes having employers drop her for speaking out against the unfair physical advantage male athletes, who merely identify as women have over their female competitors.

"There’s been so much hate and bullying," she said. "It’s been very hard. Charities I’ve worked with for 30 years have dropped me, and agents I’ve worked with for 30 or 40 years don’t use me anymore, because the trans activists can be so vicious and malicious – they go after your work, after your brand, they attack everything."

Her interview detailed how she was only able to stay afloat financially because of an inheritance she received from her mother, who passed away five years ago. "The money’s nearly gone now. But I can’t back down," says Davies. "If you have the courage of your convictions you have to back those up with evidence and science and then you just have to hold your ground."

And science is on her side. According to the two most comprehensive academic reviews of the evidence to date, published in the two top sports medicine journals in the world—Hilton & Lindberg 2021 in Sports Medicine, and Harper et al, 2021 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine—males have a significant physical advantage over females. These review papers found that after 3+ years of testosterone suppression, biological male athletes only had minimal reductions in strength, nowhere near the amount that would have been needed to close the large male-female performance gap.

Davies was robbed of her own Olympic gold medal in the 1980 Moscow Olympics when East Germany doped their female swimmers with testosterone. Davies came in second to East-German Petra Schneider, who later admitted to, along with her teammates, having been doped with testosterone in the state-sponsored scandal, which gave her a significant advantage over her competitors.

Davies described a feeling of  "pride and relief" when she learned last month that the world swimming body (FINA) is banning transgender athletes who have been through male puberty from competing in women’s races.

Though there have been a  "very small minority of very vocal trans activists" who she says has made her life hell, Davies stresses that her position is not anti-trans. "I have friends with trans children, I have made friends with lots of transgender people during this process because the majority totally understand. A lot just want to live their lives and think this argument is making things more difficult for them."

Despite death threats to herself and her children, Davies stands firm in her position: "I feel so passionately about this, though it’s all been worth it. Sport has taught me to be resilient – you get knocked down seven times and get up eight times."