28/05/2019
BBC Radio Five Live, the Corporation's national talk and sports network, which airs on digital platforms and on 909 kHz medium wave, dedicated a ninety minute discussion on the development of Womens Sports on Bank Holiday Monday evening. The programme considered how womens sports have developed since the nineteenth century, when specialist news magazines first hit the stands, and on to the present day, with tournaments like the Women's World Cup being taken seriously by network TV sports channels for the first time. There was no discussion on the position of trans women in sport, that we saw, but it is a “hot potato” issue in the field of women's sports at the present time. The LGBT newswire Gay Star News notes that a minority of lesbian athletes such as Martina Navratolava have alienated a lot of their former supporters, by stating that they do not believe that trans women can fairly compete against women born women. However, this has also opened a wider debate on the levels of testosterone that women athletes may have, and the rancorous discussions are ongoing in the fields of sports.
