The winner of a World’s Strongest Woman contest has been stripped of her title over claims that she was born a man.
The debate relating to transgenderism in sport has picked up pace in recent years, dividing people’s opinions and leading to some amount of strong opposition.
A World’s Strongest Woman contest recently came under fierce scrutiny after the winner, the US’ Jammie Booker, was accused of being born a biological male.
The event, which took place in Arlington, Texas saw the UK’s Andrea Thompson – the victor in 2018 – react angrily after finishing as runner up.
Thompson missed out on winning the contest by just one point in the open women’s category, which requires no weight limit.
Following the final on November 23, Thompson walked off stage claiming the result was “bull****”. Booker, meanwhile, celebrated her triumph.
A debate has played out since then relating to Booker’s gender after a YouTube video from 2017 surfaced appeared to confirm that the competitor was born a biological male.
The video in question, said to be uploaded to Booker’s own YouTube channel, saw the strongwoman state: “Everyone is dying to tell their own story, and I am obviously no exception to that.
“I’m a 21-year-old trans woman with a history of abuse, struggling to stay true to herself while under the rule of her religious parents.”
On the basis of that admission there were widespread calls for Booker to be stripped of her new title. According to the Strongman Archives, Booker had not competed in a women’s event prior to June 2025, when she turned out at the Rainier Classic-Pro-Am.
Official Strongman later declared on social media that they were unaware of the allegations before the event, stating it “appears that an athlete who is biologically male and who now identifies as female competed in the Women’s Open category”.
The organization added that Booker would not have been allowed to compete in the competition had they known about the state of affairs, revealing that she had since been disqualified.
The statement continued: “Any athlete is welcome. But it is our responsibility to ensure fairness and ensure athletes are assigned to men’s or women’s categories based on whether they are recorded as male or female at birth.
“Given this, we have disqualified the athlete in question from the Official Strongman World Championships 2025.
“All athlete points and places will be altered accordingly to ensure that the rightful places are allocated to each of the Women’s Open athletes.”
A byproduct of the ruling means that Thompson is now the event’s recognized winner.
“What should be a momentous occasion has sadly been overshadowed by scandal and dishonesty from someone who was welcomed into our crazy sport,” Thompson wrote in a statement on social media.
“A sport which encourages women to celebrate themselves without being judged on how society says they should be.
“I can honestly say that no one, including the @officialstrongmangames team, had any clue what was about to transpire. No one had any reason to suspect otherwise.
“I am not only frustrated with not being able to celebrate a win, but also for the ladies who had their time to shine on the podium or reach the final day, taken away from them.”
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