Greens to debate giving biological males legal right to compete in women’s sport

Members of the Green Party have drawn up proposals, to be debated at Party conference in October, which would give biological male athletes a legal right to compete in women’s sport. The plans say that they will give transgender people the right to compete in the category “they feel most comfortable in”, and could become party policy within weeks.

The landscape around transgender rights and women’s rights has undergone a sea-change in recent months, beginning with the UK Supreme Court ruling April 2025 that the words ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer only to biological women and biological sex, rather than gender identity.

In accordance with the ruling, Government guidance published earlier this year declared that public bodies must ensure that single-sex sports are determined by biological sex, rather than gender identity. This was welcomed by gender-critical advocates who argued that it would protect the integrity of women’s sport.

The Green Party proposal states that “Sport allows people to stay physically and mentally healthy. Sporting bans at any level, especially attacking trans people, have serious consequences for gender diverse and global majority peoples’ mental and physical health.” It also suggested that the new rules are rooted in “historical colonial and Eurocentric attitudes” and “transmisogyny”.

The Green Party has already called for the guidance on single-sex sports teams to be withdrawn: this new motion would take their position one step further, enshrining a legal right to play in any sports team which aligned with an individual’s gender identity. A party spokesperson said: “The Green Party believes that the EHRC guidance should be withdrawn, and that trans women are women, trans men are men and that non-binary identities exist and are valid.”

In response, Claire Coutinho, shadow equalities minister until this week, said: “Women shouldn’t be forced to compete against anyone who has a sex-based advantage in sport. It undermines fairness in sports and puts women’s safety at risk. We must have boundaries that protect women and girls from harm.”