My name is Raquel Rosario Sánchez and I am the spokeswoman for FiLiA. Today we are delighted to have with us an Olympian. We have professional swimmer Sharron Davies. Sharron Davies learned to swim at six years old, to train by eight and began obtaining public recognition in international competitions by 11 years old. Age 13, she represented Great Britain in the Olympic games of 1976. The height of her career came in the year 1980 when she won the silver medal at the Olympic games, held in Moscow, losing to another competitor. Years later, when the scandal about how East Germany used to enhance their athlete's performance through illegal drugs broke out, that competitor admitted that her victory was illegitimate. 

Therefore, to this day, Sharron Davies is recognised by the sports community worldwide as the rightful winner of the gold medal. 

Welcome Sharron, how are you? 

SD - Thank you very much. I'm very well. 

RRS - That is wonderful. So do we mind if we begin talking about sport? We're very interested in that topic and a question that I've always wanted to ask you is how did you become interested in sports?

What peaked your interest and got you thinking ‘I want to swim’?

SD - So I think that all Olympians, all people involved in sport have a little bit of a Eureka moment. You know, we all sit watching the television and we watch an amazing footballer or an amazing swimmer or an amazing athlete do something. And we think, oh, I would love to do that.

I was a very typical little girl. I rode ponies and did ballet and did all the normal things that little ones do. And gradually with my swimming, it's sort of just took over. So it's not something that you often decide like tomorrow I'm going to do this. It tends to grow and by the time I was eight or nine years of age, I was doing quite well in the swimming pool and all the other sports were getting dropped so I could do more swimming.

By the time I was 10, I was Devon County Senior Champion. So competing in the open age group. And then as you mentioned in your introduction at 11, I went off to my first age group international and competed against Holland in West Germany. And so it, you know, it was quite young that I was involved at sort of at quite a high level. So I was quite focused.

 I remember watching Mark Spitz win his seven gold medals at the 72 Olympic games as a little girl and thinking, oh yeah, I would love to do that, it would be amazing. And those Olympic games, which were in Munich were very politically troubled. There were lots of other issues.

But because I was so young, I don't remember that. I just remember this man with his handlebar moustache, with his big row of seven gold medals. 

So that was my Eureka moment. And I was very focused on my sport probably by the time I was in double digits, you know, at 10 years of age.

RRS-  That sounds so daunting. I mean, as an 11-year-old, what was it like to be a girl in that environment, all of these very competitive driven people?

SD - Yes. I mean, I've always been incredibly lucky with my sport that there's been total equality. So I have grown up in the world of sport, meeting people from all over the world and being able to race in what I saw as a very equal environment. And apart from the East German situation, we were all there to just try to win the race. And it didn't matter where you came from or whether you were male or female, because we had equal opportunities. The men's races were followed by the women's races and people watched both and people enjoyed both.

It wasn't like women's football or women's rugby, or women's cricket, you know, where we were seen as very much a subclass that wasn't the case in swimming. So I grew up with this lovely equality and I would say really that the inequality between the sexes that I wasn't aware of at the time, it's something that I've become much more aware of recently.

RRS - And why is that? You speak often about the importance of sports, particularly to the lives of women and girls. Could you talk a little bit to us about why you think sports is such a benefit to the lives of women and girls? 

SD - So sport is a benefit to anybody. Physically, it's terribly important that we look after ourselves, not just for our physical fitness, but for our mental health as well.

You release so many chemicals that are very good for you that make you feel confident that make you feel happy. So sport is not always recognised for the mental benefits that it brings to you and health and running. And I'm hoping that one of the very small positives that might come out of the last three months will be this upturn and people wanting to do physical activity, whether that's walking, running, or on a bike and that they put that into their life because they've had to fill some gaps and fill some time. And I'm very much hoping that they'll take that habit and they'll carry on with it because it's terribly important that we do look after our physical health. So that's the one very small benefit that hopefully might come out of this.

 For me, it's just been, I suppose, the rise of transgender women in women's sport, which has made me worried that all the strides that we've made with women's sport over the last few years are going to get ruined if we allow people with male physiology to be in women's races.

 We know that at the moment the difference between a male performance and a female performance across the board is between 8% and 31% in something like weightlifting.

So that includes also things like contact sports where obviously punching or wrestling or Taekwondo, combat situations, which is vast, you know, 31% is extraordinary. 

Because I raced these Germans, all of my career, I realised how much difference testosterone makes. And so that's why I'm particularly vocal about this because I don't want another generation to potentially lose out there on their equal opportunities to success in the world of women's sport.

I have absolutely nothing against anyone that's transgender or transsexual. And I think sport is for all. It just has to be in a fair category. That's my point. Until we can find a way to nullify all the benefits that male puberty will bring, we cannot put people with male physiology into women's events and say that it's fair.

RRS - Well, thank you for sharing that. And what I think is really important about your case is that when you were competing, you didn't know that these other women had an advantage over you. 

SD - Oh yeah, we absolutely did. I mean, we totally did. And that's the irony with all of this is that we used to speak about it often.

And we used to say, you know, these East German women are doing something, they're taking something. And we weren't stupid. We knew that it was probably a testosterone. It was a form of male hormone that was giving them the male benefit because they would arrive at competitions. And we had never seen these people before. They would arrive and they would have five o'clock shadows and Adam’s apples and male muscles and deep voices. And so they would have all of the things that were a side effect of what they were being given. 

The difference was that they didn't have a great deal of choice. They were behind the iron curtain and this was a DDR, East German, government state doping run programme.

So this isn’t individuals trying to beat the system. These were young girls being put on this program without any thought to what would happen to them later. And many of them are really poorly. And this is the side effects of giving young girls testosterone. It's not what your body is supposed to do, and it doesn't manage it very well. And so there is side effects. Lots of them have died. Lots of them have heart problems and many of them are sterile. 

So there is a very big downside to what these poor East German girls were exposed to. 

We talked about it, we complained about it. My dad talked about it, who was my coach, very loudly. And because he talked about it very loudly, he was never selected as a British swimming coach because he always shouted about what should have been done and how the IOC, the Olympic Association should have done more and they did nothing. And for 20 years, this went on, didn't go on for a couple of years. It went on for nearly four Olympic games where they totally dominated women's sport.

And so there were two victims. There were the people like myself that lost medals, some British people that should have won medals that didn't even get on the medal podium that no one's ever heard of because they were beaten by three East Germans. And then there were the East German girls themselves that were basically thrown to the wolves as a political experiment.

RRS - Thank you for clarifying that. I hadn't thought about that bit of the puzzle. And I imagine it must have been so frustrating to be complaining about this constantly and to be ignored. And I mean, I wonder if the East Germans themselves were noticing what was happening to their bodies and were complaining as well.

SD - They did. So I did a documentary for channel five and I went to East Germany and spoke to many of these girls. And I actually met up with Petra Schneider, who was the lady that beat me, and they did. The problem was because they could turn a very average athlete into a world champion because the improvement they were giving them on average was 9%, which is vast, they really didn't care.

 So if you turned around and said, I don't want to do this, I don't want to take these little blue pills. Then you would just be pushed off to the side. What people didn't realise was that they didn't have very much behind the iron curtain. And so they were given financial benefits as well.

They were given cars and they were given flats and they were given jobs to their parents. And so these young girls could see that they could make a difference for their families by staying on these programs. 

So it's very difficult. It's easy for us to say in the Western world that they should have done something about it, but if you'd been in their position, I'm not sure that you would've done very much different because you didn't have a great deal of choice.

And those that did choose were just pushed to the side. There were a few. There's an East German lady called Rica Reinisch who stood up to them. And after the Olympic games in Moscow, her father was a doctor and he could see what was going on and he removed her from the programme and she was pushed aside, even as a double Olympic champion, because she dared to, you know, voice an objection.

So I think it's easy. Yes. But when you're in it, it's quite difficult. And I feel that the responsibility should have fallen very much on the IOC to do something about it. They were in a position to say, no, we're not going stand for this. And they did nothing. 

They had an East German doctor sitting on their doping panel.

RRS - You mentioned some structural inequalities that I think give complexity to this issue. And I'm going to ask you about the IOC in a couple of minutes, but I wanted to ask if you don't mind. 

What did you learn from that experience with the East German champions? Like as a young woman, interested in sports, what was the life lesson that you took from it?

SD - I think for me, fairness is the thing, the biggest lesson that I have. The biggest trait that's followed me throughout my life is hard work, focus, the ability to know if you want something you've got to work for. But also that I've always tried to be really fair and really open about everything.

And that's why I suppose, what's going on at the moment grates with me so much, because it's just not fair. It's not fair to give away that much of an advantage to somebody, It doesn't work the other way around, you know, transgender men, biological women will not be able to make the tiniest dent on men's sport whatsoever, which is why men are not speaking about it because it will not affect them. But obviously for us, it works the other way.

 We just cannot give away anywhere between 8% and 31% and expect to be able to hold our own. It means that major medals will be won by biological men. Scholarships will be taken away from girls and given to men and 50% of the world, the biological females of this world will not get equal opportunities to have success in sport in the sporting world. And nowadays that's a career.

Sport has become so professional; you are taking away the opportunities to have equal opportunities in that particular chosen career. 

RRS - You noticed that this thing was very troubling. What happened once you spoke with your colleagues and with other swimmers about this behind the scenes, did you find support, what was your experience trying to raise awareness about this behind the scenes?

SD - So myself and Paula Radcliffe and Kelly Holmes decided to put together a letter a year ago to the IOC and within the space of a weekend, we got 60 of our friends, all of which were Olympic medallist and world champions to sign a letter. We sent this to the IOC and the letter basically said, we'd really like you to just do the research first, before you change the rules, please put the research in place first. If that's going take a bit of time, then that's what you need to do. The evidence is there that male bodies are stronger than female bodies. So that surely is in not in dispute. You only have to look at your own records to know that, you know, reducing testosterone for one year to 10 nmol/L will not level the playing field. For starters the majority of women are under 1nmol/L testosterone per litre and at the moment, the levels are 10 nmol/L for transgender women. And again, if you're a female athlete, you will have had years of having to abide by the rules. But if you're a transgender woman, you've only got to produce your testosterone levels for one year.

So all of those benefits of male puberty are not going to disappear. And as you know, when you are born a male, when you're born with XY chromosomes, you end up with a larger lung capacity, more ability to transfer oxygen in a haemoglobin level in your red blood cells. You end up with different bone density and you end up with a different bone composition, what we call the Q angle from your hips to your knees, which means that women have much bigger levels of knee injury than men do because of this Q angle.

And they can't get rid of those benefits by reducing testosterone to 10 times the level of a female for one year. It's impossible. 

RRS - What was the response to your letter, then? 

SD - Pretty much nothing. It's really disappointing. And I just felt that we were repeating a loop. We were going back to the situation in the seventies and the eighties when the IOC just did not want to listen.

And that's why I'm so vocal about this because I have personal stake in what happened all those years ago. And I genuinely do not want to see it happen to another generation of female athletes. 

RRS - Why do you think that they just have ignored those voices? Why do you think that there is this insistence on desegregating sports?

SD - I don't know whether it's a litigious thing. I don't know whether it's an ignorance thing. I don’t know whether it's the PC thing. I don't know what it is. I find it very hard to understand why we can't put this in the hands of the scientists. I think that it will change. But I think in some respects it will take the general public, seeing the results of these very bad new rules before people start saying, this is silly. This should not be allowed to happen. 

And my point is, why should we do that? You know, why should we throw a few people under the bus for everyone to go? Oh, actually, yes, we do know there is a biological difference between male, men and women, because we do know that already. So that's what is frustrating for me is that we're wanting to do something after the horse is bolted rather than beforehand.

I think there's money involved. And I think it's a, a distinct feeling that the IOC really don't want to be the leaders in this. And they've not wanted to be the leaders in many things. I mean, you take the last Olympic games in Rio. When the, IAAF said that we don't want the Russians, but they're systematic doping problems in the Olympic games.

And the IOC didn't turn around and say, okay, across the board, Russians will not be able to compete until they clean their house up. They turned around and passed the back to all the different associations. And the IAAF had the courage to say no. Swimming, for example, which is FINA said, yeah, fine, absolutely carry on.

And we had swimmers in the pool, Russian swimmers in the pool that had had three bans that were still racing. 

RRS - So speaking of the general public, what was your experience when you started to speak out publicly about your concerns? 

SD - Pretty much the same as you've seen happen very recently to JK Rowling, A huge pile on, massive misogyny. You know, how dare I take away other people's human rights. I'm not for one moment trying to take away anyone's human rights. I'm just after fairness. That's all, you know, I believe sports should be available to everybody, but you should be competing where it's fair. 

I have friends that are transgender. I have friends that are transsexual and I did a great deal of research before I talked about this, I spoke to doctors and professors, people that were very, very educated medically and socially, and there are human rights for everybody. So a small section of people's human rights should not trump, the human rights of the whole female generation. It just should not.

We have to find a way to be able to make it right for everybody. 

RRS - Do you mind if I ask you, how did you cope? We are all seeing with horror, what is happening to J K Rowling. And it has happened to so, so many women, but I want to know, how did you find this strength to carry on when it was happening to you when you were going through that backlash for speaking out in favour of women's sports?

SD - Yeah, and I think I'm probably still going through it. You know, I still have a number of people that are vile on places like Twitter. I just ignore it. And I, and I don't tend to read it very much. I think it's just my personal conscience didn't allow me to keep my hand down and be complicit with what was going on because I'd had to deal with it when I was swimming. I suppose I grew a slightly thicker skin. 

And also because then I also married a black athlete and had two mixed race children, which was in the nineties. I also had huge backlash on that. I had bombs sent me in the post. So, you know, I've had to deal with different things throughout my whole life which has enabled me to kind of grow a thick skin really, and just get to the point where I have to live with my own conscience. And so that's where I am. That's why I feel about it. The way that I do that I could not sit by and just keep my head down for the sake of having more commercial contracts, because in 10 years’ time, the truth will come out.

You know, whether that's going to be about young people being put on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, which will have devastating effects on them in the long term or whether this is about the unfairness of sport. You know, I couldn't with all faith, sit back in the future and just go, I did nothing to try and stop it.

RRS - Well, that's very powerful and very beautiful. Thank you for sharing. 

Do you have any hope for the future in regards to this issue? Do you see the tide turning when it comes to the facts and the research and the scientific evidence that you have pointed out?

SD - Yes, I think it will do. We've had some reports come out of a Swedish university after one year of study, which already shows that what the IOC put in place will not work, is not good enough will not level the playing field in any shape or form.

And there are studies going on at the moment, definitely that I know of at Loughborough University, but it's a three-year study. So that will probably still be 18 months away. So as time goes on, we will get this scientific evidence and then the IOC will have to hopefully act on it. 

What is also really promising is that there are some young people taking states and schools and sporting bodies to court in America, and they are winning.

Because of Title IX in the States, and this is an Equality Act, which they have, which is being broken. One state in America, there was a few, states that providing you identified as a female, you could compete in women's events up to the age of 18, regardless of any form of medical intervention.

So in other words, you didn't have to suppress your testosterone or do anything. You just basically had to say, yes, I'm a woman and you can race. And so these girls were losing their places at college and losing all their medals and their places on teams to people that were doing absolutely nothing to even try to level the playing field and there're winning.

And there are States now that are being forced to change those rules. So I do think we have to maybe go the legal way and basically say, hang on, women have rights. 

RRS - What would you say to the people who are listening to us? What is the basic message that, that you would like to convey to them about the importance of women's sports and fairness in women's sports?

SD - I just think we need to have a debate. You know, if you are trying to close down conversation, there is a reason why you're trying to do that. And it's not a good reason. It's because you have an agenda and that's what's going on at the moment with JK Rowling and what's been going on in sport and it's about not wanting to have debates and you throw in this word transphobic around as a way to try to close people down, to scare people into not being able to speak the truth.

That is a very dangerous thing for any society about any subject whatsoever. And so I'm just hoping that eventually enough people will be brave enough that we'll be able to talk about this openly and we'll be able to refer to facts rather than just ideology. 

No one can force somebody to believe something, whether that's a religion or whether it's trans ideology, if you don't believe that. I have no problem with someone that's Catholic or Jewish, I don't believe in it, but you are entitled to believe it, but you're not entitled to force me to believe it.

And that's the difference. 

RRS - You've said it very powerfully. My final question is very specific. 

What would you say to an 11-year-old girl who was maybe like in your position a couple of decades ago, who is interested in swimming or any other sort of sports, but is watching what is happening and she wants to swim and compete in a fair environment. What would you say to that girl?

SD -  I would say do it. Absolutely do it. Sport has been the most wonderful thing in my life. You know, I have been to 11 Olympic games so far Tokyo will be my 12th. I haven't missed an Olympics since I was 13 years old. They are incredible. You know, sport is incredible. You make friends that you will have for life.

It teaches you wonderful values that will have for life. It will teach you a lovely habit of keeping fit and going to the gym and, you know, being involved with sport, which has so many pluses. So please do not let this put you off. We are getting so much better at being able to have equality in team sports, where in the past we have lagged behind.

As I said, I hadn't really ever suffered with inequality inside of my sport because of the fact that we are always on a par. But, you know, we've made great strides in team sports like rugby and football and, and cricket.

 Women's teams now are revered and people are watching in their tens of thousands and women's world football world cup brings to mind recently, you know, we had great viewing figures on television. So please do it, it’s a wonderful thing to be involved with, and you will not regret it and we will keep on fighting on your behalf.

RRS - Well, that's amazing. Well, thank you Sharron so much for speaking with us. Is there anything else that you would like to say?

SD -  Just that please anybody that's listening out there, you need to be able to express yourself safely however, makes you happy. I think what we have to try to understand, maybe in this world that we live in now in, in the year 2020, is that stereotypes are getting narrower and that's not healthy. When I was growing up, we had wonderful people like Boy George and David Bowie and Marilyn, and these people were expressing themselves freely and safely. And people should be allowed to express themselves freely and safely, but I think we’re getting gender and sex mixed up. And we've just got to be a lot clearer about what they define.