Triathlon has banned all transgender women from female competitions at both elite and grassroots level, and announces an ‘open’ category.

British Triathlon is changing the men’s category to ‘open’ to let trans athletes compete.

These changes will be enforced in January 2023, replacing the 2018 guidelines, which allowed trans women to join female events as long as they had suppressed the levels of their testosterone.

Triathlon chief executive Andy Salmon said: “We concluded that triathlon is a gender-affected sport and that means that athletes who were born male have an advantage over athletes who were born female and this advantage is significant in swim, bike and run.

“We also concluded that physiological advantages are retained by testosterone suppression.”

He also said that there will be two categories – an open category and a female category.

“The new policy will require two categories – a female category, which will be open to athletes who are female sex at birth, and an open category, which will be open to all athletes, including men and transgender athletes,” Salmon continued.

The new policy will be enforced in ‘competitive events’ at all levels.

“For international competition, only athletes who are female sex at birth will be eligible to represent Great Britain, England, Scotland or Wales in female competition.”

“We believe this is the right policy for our sport in Great Britain. We are incredibly proud and precious about our tradition, and our key principle of gender equity, and that is why fairness in our sport is so important,” he went on.

“We have taken strong legal advice and believe our policy is legally robust.”

This comes only a week after Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries urged all sports governing bodies to ban trans women from competing in female events.

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