GETTY Let’s not pretend that a transgender man competing against female athletes is a level playing field

But what about that other much discriminated-against group: women? If men want to become women and women want to become men that is fine by me but let’s not pretend that a transgender man competing against female athletes is a level playing field. Ballet is one thing. With women dancers becoming ever more muscular while their male counterparts stretch their classical lines, there is something to be said for a more androgynous approach to an art form that has for far too long confined the fairer sex to a pink tutu. But the International Olympic Committee’s recent decision to permit transgender men to compete as sportswomen merits more scrutiny than political correctness might at first allow. Last month it was announced that men no longer have to undergo genital realignment surgery or prove they have been on hormone therapy for two years to compete against women in Rio. To take part in women’s events they need only declare themselves female and keep their testosterone levels below 10 nanomols per litre (nmol/L) for a year before competing. What, no need for castration nor the growth of breasts? That’s a leap of Greg Rutherford proportions since London 2012. Since the average woman’s testosterone levels peak at 3.8nmol/L (compared with 30nmol/L for a man) it means transgender athletes will be allowed to have almost three times the upper range of this performance-enhancing hormone than a born woman.

ABC/ GETTY Caitlyn Jenner when she was competing at the 1976 Olympics as Bruce

How’s that equality? Hormone therapy might lower muscle density in transgender competitors but being born a man has God-given advantages that are not affected by any amount of oestrogen. For instance men have narrower pelvises than women because they were created to run after food as opposed to the children they didn’t give birth to. Men also tend to have longer bones (and therefore wider strides – handy for a hurdler), not to mention larger rib cages containing larger hearts and lungs with a greater maximum capacity. Thanks to men’s naturally higher haemoglobin levels their blood carries more oxygen around their body than a woman’s, leading to higher levels of endurance. Men also apparently have a higher platelet count than women meaning they heal faster from injury (not that you would ever know it, the way my husband goes on, anyway). Women, meanwhile, have to put up with things like periods and babies interrupting their training schedules. Jessica Ennis Hill had to announce her retirement next year just because she wants another child, something Caitlyn Jenner never had to do, even when she was competing at the 1976 Olympics as Bruce. (Don’t even get me started on cankles, a pregnancy symptom familiar to women the world over regardless of their sporting prowess). I’m all for equality but since the transgender community accounts for less than half a per cent of the global population why has the IoC seen fit to make such extraordinary allowances?

GETTY Men no longer have to undergo genital realignment surgery to compete against women in Rio

“The overriding sporting objective is and remains the guarantee of fair competition,” it said. Ha! Tell that to Tamikka Brents, the boxer who had her eye socket broken by transgender mixed martial artist Fallon Fox in 2014. In the postfight interview, once she had recovered from her concussion, Tamikka said: “I have never felt so overpowered and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right.” It’s difficult enough for female athletes in the maledominated arena of sport as it is but when they are having to compete against people with actual penises? As reports of doping have proved, athletics remains a very murky world. You wouldn’t put it past unscrupulous countries to fill their female teams with women who were born males just to win more medals. Iran is allegedly already at it with eight of the women’s football team recently reported to be men awaiting sex changes. I appreciate it isn’t easy to get Muslim women to play football, with religious rules barring them even from entering stadiums to watch male matches, but this appears to be taking the rules and bending them like Beckham in a burka.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have little sympathy for the traffic warden who has had to go into hiding after ticketing a driver who had ran out of fuel. While I obviously do not condone the death threats she has received after a photograph of the incident was posted online, she only has herself to blame for being such a jobsworth. Apparently she slapped the fine on the windscreen despite pleas from the passenger that the driver was walking to the garage to buy fuel. That’s as vindictive as fining a waiting hearse or ambulance, frankly. Had the scene in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales, not gone viral, I doubt the local council would have been as easily persuaded to cancel the ticket. It is now said to be “investigating” the cyber bullying against the traffic warden. Might a better use of taxpayers’ money be training wardens to use more common sense and compassion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHO better to tell you what a bad parent you are than your own child? Last week my husband was horrified to receive a letter from our eldest, admonishing him for his language during a post-watershed argument with his computer. The pencil-written note read: “Dear Daddy, while your (sic) in the study at night we are still awake sometimes. When you are playing music it wakes me up and a few minuts (sic) ago I herd (sic) you shouting swear words. Please dnot (sic) do it. Write back here. Please ruturn (sic) pensil (sic).”

LNP/REX/ SHUTTERSTOCK Matthew Ingham cut free the secured computers before his partner Kim Ager sold them on Facebook