Last week Beth Fisher, a sports journalist made this extraordinary statement on the validity of the science behind World Rugby's proposal to make women's rugby single sex. Thread 1/

Fisher seems to be referring to the study by academics at @karolinskainst which looked at Muscle strength, size and composition following 12 months of gender-affirming treatment and found that transwomen retained advantage 2/ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/782557v1

Fisher accuses the academic leading the research of being a "well known Te*f", what Fisher fails to mention is that the Karolinska Institute is in the top 10 universities in the world for medical research: 3/

Fisher has given no evidence to back up her slur of an academic, despite her assertions to the contrary the only "facts" she could offer were accusations. @Fernand18962391 4/

Despite the research being published in leading peer reviewed scientific journals across the world, Fisher criticises it because it was carried out on "11 transwomen (not sporty [sic] or rugby players) " 5/

Fisher completely fails to mention the study also looked at transmen. Forgotten again eh? 6/

So is this study too small to prove the absolute common sense statement that men have physical advantages over women? 7/

Well it seems that small studies have an extremely important parts to play in the inclusion of male bodied people in women's sport. 8/

In 2015 the International Olympic Committee decided to allow transwomen who had not received gender reassignment surgery to participate in women's sports. 9/

Dr Emma Hilton @fondofbeetles reviewed this evidence behind their decision for @fairplaywomen 10/

The main evidence was a paper by Joanne Harper, a transwomen, who studied 8 sub elite runners, in what's been described as a laughably flawed study. 11/

So this clearly biased, extremely flawed piece of research was key to persuading the @olympic Committee to allow male bodied people into women's sports. Yet a larger study by a top university can't be used as evidence? 12/

Slurring academics and criticising sample size, in this issue, is hypocrisy at its finest.
And really something a "professional" journalist shouldn't be doing! End