This year’s London Marathon will see ‘transwomen’ (i.e. men) competing in places set aside for female athletes, despite the recent definitive legal decision that says women-only spaces are protected in law.
The event, scheduled for Sunday, April 27th, will see 56,000 competitors take to the streets of the capital. However, there is anger that women have already lost places to men who choose to self-identify as women. For critical observers, this is all too reminiscent of 2023, when Mr. Glen Frank, fresh from the New York Marathon, rebranded himself as “Glenique” and finished in front of 14,000 runners in London’s female category. (He later apologised.)
Officially, the day’s main organiser Hugh Brasher wants to be “inclusive,” while waiting for a “detailed report” from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (and Sport England) to help him with a decision. For now at least, an unpopular third category of ‘non-binary’ runners will be allowed to limp toward the finish line.
In the Marathon’s early years its founder Chris Brasher (1928–2003) initially (and wrongly) resisted pressure to admit elite wheelchair athletes. In contrast, like the UK’s dithering Football Association, his successor seems happy to roll over and submit to the bizarre demands of cheats and gender extremists.
