A lawmaker from the National Rally introduced a piece of legislation earlier this month that, if passed by the National Assembly, would assure the preservation of women’s athletics in France, making it so athletes are required to compete in categories that correspond to the biological sex that appears on their birth certificate.
The legislation, seen by the press on Tuesday, July 18th, was presented to the French chamber by National Rally MP Julien Odoul, who has repeatedly decried what he calls the “transgender drift” in women’s sports. The text’s primary aim, he says, is to “preserve women’s sport” and rectify a situation that allows transgender ‘women’ to “win competitions because of their physiological advantage,” BFMTV reports.
Odoul likened the rules that are currently in place, which allow biological males who have ‘transitioned’ into transgender ‘women,’ to “a form of legalized doping.”
“It’s a real danger for women’s sport, which simply aims to replace sportswomen with sportsmen,” the 38-year-old National Rally lawmaker stated plainly.
The proposed legislation comes just days after the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the governing body for the competitive sport of cycling worldwide, announced last Friday, July 14th, that so-called trans ‘women’ who had been through male puberty will be banned from competing in women’s categories.
Earlier this year, in March, the World Athletics Council issued a similar ruling, also announcing that transgender ‘women’ who had already gone through male puberty would no longer be permitted to compete in female events, as The European Conservative previously reported.
Odoul, during the press conference, noted how the practice of allowing biological males who have become transgender ‘women’ has become widespread throughout the United States. His colleague, National Rally MP Roger Chudeau, supported his assertion by citing the case of Lia Thomas, a transgender ‘woman’ who won the 500-yard freestyle swimming competition at the NCCA Championships.
The National Rally MP now hopes to convince other deputies in the lawmaking chamber that the law is one that promotes “equal opportunity” for female athletes.
The presence of transgender ‘women’ athletes competing alongside biological females has been a hotly debated topic for quite some time now, as international sports bodies continue to struggle to strike a balance between inclusion and sports equity.
Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra announced earlier this year her intention to gather experts by this autumn who can help to establish a working framework to “promote the inclusion of transgender athletes competing at the highest level.
