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Mara Yamauchi vs. transgender people

Mara Yamauchi is a British runner and anti-transgender activist. Yamauchi is a prominent opponent of transgender athletes in sex-segregated competitive sport and serves as an advisor to anti-trans group Sex Matters.

Background

Mara Rosalind Myers was born on August 13, 1973 in Oxford, England to Dorothy Myers and environmentalist Norman Myers. The family lived in Kenya until Mara was eight. Mara began running competitively during college.  

After earning a bachelor’s degree from St Anne’s College, Oxford, Mara earned a master’s degree from London School of Economics. Mara joined the British Foreign Ministry, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), in 1996. From 1998 to 2002, Mara worked at the British Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. In 2002, Mara married Shigetoshi Yamauchi and took the name Mara Yamauchi.

In 2004, Yamauchi began competing in marathons. Yamauchi competed in the 2005 World Championships in Athletics, and in 2006 took unpaid leave from the FCO and moved to Tokyo to prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympic marathon. In 2006 Yamauchi earned bronze at the Commonwealth Games and won the Rotterdam Half Marathon. In 2007, Yamauchi placed sixth in the London Marathon and joined Second Wind AC, remaining until 2010. In 2008, Yamauchi won the Osaka Ladies Marathon, took third in the Tokyo marathon, and took sixth in the marathon at the 2008 Summer Olympics. In 2009, Yamauchi took second in the London Marathon, won the Marugame Half Marathon, then withdrew from the 2009 World Championships in Athletics due to a foot injury. In 2010, Yamauchi won the New York City Half Marathon and took tenth at the London Marathon, In 2011, Yamauchi took third in the Yokohama Women’s Marathon and was named to the 2012 Olympic team for Great Britain before withdrawing due to a foot injury. Yamauchi retired from competitive athletics in 2013.

Anti-trans activism

In 2022, Yamauchi was named an advisor to Sex Matters. In a profile on that site, Yamauchi stated:

“Having been an elite athlete, I have seen with my own eyes every day that sex matters in sport. The physical advantages males have, on average, compared to females are numerous and varied. This is because of sex, not because of identity, training habits, level of effort, or anything else. These sex-derived advantages are facts that are well documented. If we fail to recognise these advantages and organise sports accordingly, females will lose out. In competitive sport, the right to be included in competitions and teams is earned through years of hard work and sacrifice. Therefore, fairness is paramount.”

In a 2022 op-ed for The Guardian, Yamauchi wrote:

The debate about trans inclusion in sport has focused mostly on the elite level. But the crisis facing women’s sport is just as serious at grassroots level. Male-born people are competing in women’s sport all over the UK. Officials and event organisers, many of them volunteers, are powerless to turn away requests from people born male to compete in the female category.

[…] One feature of this debate that I find very frustrating is the lack of basic understanding of sport by many who favour inclusion of male-born people in the female category. For example, conflating the differences between the sexes (which are massive), with differences in bodies – for example big feet, or being left-handed – which occur in both males and females (and are, by comparison, minuscule). Otherwise known as the Phelps gambit – named after swimmer Michael Phelps and based on the idea that his physique gave him an unfair competitive edge over his closest competitors – this argument has been demolished by scientists numerous times, yet still it gets wheeled out.

[…] Inclusion’s supporters tout this as a social justice and human rights issue. If only they would include females in their crusade.

Yamauchi was a speaker at conferences held by anti-trans group Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) in 2022 and 2023.

In 2023, Yamauchi signed an open letter created by anti-trans group Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism in support of Kenneth Zucker following the retraction of a paper promoting the anti-trans disease “rapid onset gender dysphoria” by “Suzanna Diaz” and J. Michael Bailey

Selected writing by Yamauchi

Yamauchi, Mara (July 2, 2022). Dr Linda Blade and a life in athletics. World Athletics https://worldathletics.org/personal-best/lifestyle/linda-blade-life-in-athletics

Yamauchi, Mara (June 30, 2022). Ministers need to enforce fairness for females in sport. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/29/ministers-fairness-females-sport-swimming-policy

Book

Yamauchi, Mara (2022). Marathon Wisdom: An Elite Athlete’s Insights on Running and Life. Meyer & Meyer Fachverlag und Buchhandel GmbH, ISBN 978-1782552451

References

Moss, Emily (August 3, 2016, updated March 12, 2025). Despite her retirement, Mara Yamauchi is still running and helping others to run, writes Emily Moss. Athletics Weekly https://athleticsweekly.com/news/interviews/where-are-they-now-mara-yamauchi-47820/

Resources

Sex Matters (sex-matters.org)

  • Mara Yamauchi
  • sex-matters.org/about-us/advisory-group/mara-yamauchi

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Mara Yamauchi (marayamauchi.com)

Blogzine (blogzine.jp)

  • Mara Yamauchi
  • marayamauchi.blogzine.jp/english [archive]

X/Twitter (x.com)

Athletics Weekly (athleticsweekly.com)

World Athletics (worldathletics.org)