Former Olympian swimmer Sharon Davies has disclosed that she is having difficulty sustaining her job as a sports ambassador and pundit due to the persistent harassment she has received from trans “activists” for advocating for women’s rights in sports.
Davies has long been vocal about her disapproval of biological men competing against women in sports like swimming.
She asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2016 along with 60 other prominent athletes to review the rules permitting biological men to participate against women.
Her position is the result of being denied a gold medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics by an East German squad that testosterone-doped its female swimmers.
The East German women had been “doped with testosterone and put through male puberty,” writes Davies in an opinion piece for Newsweek. “They looked and sounded like men; they had male physiques, male voices, they even had Adam’s apples.”
“I could not stand by and say nothing as another generation misses out on what’s rightfully theirs,” Davies said.
She added, “The reason I am so vocal about the trans issue is because you’re now asking the next generation of females to go through what I went through: start a race with somebody next to you who you know has an unfair advantage.”
She now claims that the enraged transgender mob is pressuring her former employers, charities, and agencies with whom she has worked for decades to fire her.
“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,” Davies said.
Davies continued by saying that she was only able to maintain her job due to an inheritance from her mother.
“The money’s nearly gone now. But I can’t back down,” Davies said, adding “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.”
She also claims that she and her kids have received death threats.
Davies adds that others in her industry have been silent out of concern for being “cancelled” by the mob.
“Loads of female athletes have supported my campaigning,” Davies said, adding “The problem is that people are worried about trans activists, so a lot of people tend to keep their heads down. Of the 60 people who signed our letter, only four or five had ever put their head above the parapet. The rest of them remained anonymous.”
FINA, the organisation that oversees swimming worldwide, has outlawed transgender athletes from competing in women’s events if they have had any type of male puberty.
Davies said she was proud of Fina for “doing the science, asking the athletes/coaches and standing up for fair sport for females.”
Despite the barrage of abuse from the mob, Davies claims that her attitude outside of sports 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,” Davies notes, adding “A lot just want to live their lives and think this argument is making things more difficult for them.”
“We still have a lot of work to do. I’ll now be campaigning for every single sport to ban trans women from the female category… Women’s races are there for females. That’s why they have that category. Women’s races are not there for mediocre males.”