FORMER Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies has become embroiled in the row about transgender people competing in top level sports.

Miss Davies, who won a silver medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics and two Commonwealth gold medals, has joined other elite female Olympic athletes and tennis players to voice her views on transgender competitors.

The current debate on the issue was inflamed last month when Martina Navratilova, 18 times a women’s tennis Grand Slam winner, said it was “cheating” to allow transgender women to compete in female competitions because of their unfair physical advantages gained from being born male.

She was heavily criticised by LGBT groups and later apologised for using the word ‘cheat’, but her views gathered widespread support from other top athletes.

They include Miss Davies, Billie Jean King, Dame Kelly Holmes, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and Paula Radcliffe.

Miss Davies, who lives in Bradford on Avon, said: “All we are asking is for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to revisit the situation medically and make a ruling. It is really simple. They should categorise athletes in sport by sex and not by gender.

“When you do it by gender there is a really grey area. When you do it by sex, it makes it really simple.”

Miss Davies, 56, was immediately accused of being a “transphobe” by Rachel McKinnon, a transgender cyclist who won a Masters Track World Championship title last year.

Miss McKinnon also posted a photograph of Miss Davies on social media, and suggested that a lot of people would be “calling her a man”.

Backing the pressure group Fair Play for Women, Miss Davies says she is not transphobic and that all she wants is to “get people to understand and discuss the issues.”

She said: “I believe there is a fundamental difference between the binary sex you are born with and the gender you may identify as. To protect women’s sport, those with a male sex advantage should not be able to compete in women’s sport.

“To categorise someone who has been born as a male will always be unfair because they will always have an unfair advantage over women. There is no surgery or chemicals required; all they have to do is to reduce their testosterone levels and self-identify as a woman.

“I think the science is really important. The potential for abuse is horrendous. It’s all about physique. It will lead to the demise of female sport if something is not done. It’s unfair when we have made such great strides in female sport in recent years.”