Barbra Banda has become the lightning rod for a new sporting gender row after being named BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year.
A significant amount of misinformation has swirled around this story, with Banda facing torrents of abuse and death threats alongside false accusations.
Here are the facts about Banda, why her award and status as a female footballer is considered controversial and the state of gender eligibility and sex testing in women’s football.
Who is Barbra Banda?
Banda is a 24-year-old striker for Orlando Pride and the Zambia national team. Born into poverty in the Zambian capital Lusaka, she took part in both boxing and football in her youth, winning five professional bouts before deciding to focus on the latter.
In 2018, she became the first Zambian woman to play in Europe after moving to Spanish side EDF Logrono (now DUX Logrono), where 16 goals in 28 games earned her a move to Chinese Women’s Super League side Shanghai Shengli.
After winning the golden boot in her first season, she captained Zambia at the Tokyo Olympics, where consecutive hat-tricks made her the all-time African top scorer in Olympic women’s football.
In 2023, she then led Zambia to their first ever World Cup win, scoring an injury-time goal to beat Germany 3-2. This led to her becoming the second-most expensive player in women’s football history in March 2024, as Orlando Pride paid £584,000 for Banda.
And she proved worth the outlay, winning the league’s MVP award as Pride won both the NWSL Championship and Shield, while contributing another four Olympic goals in Paris. She is also the all-time top scorer for Zambia, with 57 goals in 63 games, as well as finishing 12th in the 2024 Ballon d’Or.
She was then named BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year 2024, shortlisted by a panel of more than 40 women’s football experts from four continents before being crowned the winner after an open global vote.
Why is her BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year award controversial?
Banda’s victory has been met by overwhelming criticism and negativity.
Among countless examples suggesting Banda is male, Harry Potter author JK Rowling wrote on X: “Presumably the BBC decided this was more time efficient than going door to door to spit directly in women’s faces”. Former swimmer Sharron Davies called it: “Just bloody ridiculous”.
These complaints revolve around the 2018 and 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon).
Banda was not selected in Zambia’s squad for either tournament after being found to have naturally occurring elevated levels of testosterone, exceeding the permissible level set by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The nature of the gender eligibility test she has taken is unclear.
Yet CAF has largely rejected responsibility for Banda’s non-participation. Africa’s governing body has placed blame on the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ), which did not call up Banda for either tournament.
FAZ officials believe they were doing this at CAF’s request. “All the players had to undergo gender verification, a CAF requirement, and unfortunately she did not meet the criteria set by CAF,” FAZ president Andrew Kamanga told BBC Sport Africa.
“Everybody at home has been made to believe that FAZ did nothing and decided on their own to exclude the player.
“We the federations are compelled to undertake the tests and then we pass on the information to CAF, and CAF, equally, test the players if needs be in the tournament. So it will be unfair to turn around and say CAF is not part and parcel of whatever has transpired.”
Yet the BBC has since reported Banda did not take a gender eligibility test in the build-up to Wafcon 2022, rather just taking hormone suppression medication to reduce her testosterone levels. These did not decrease sufficiently and Zambia pulled her from the tournament.
The nature of the testing Banda has been subjected to is unclear, and could be as rudimentary as solely measuring testosterone levels.
“Many players can be affected by these regulations, and football is their livelihood,” FAZ communications director Sydney Mungala told ESPN. “I think the CAF regulations are a lot more stringent [than Olympic regulations], and they put too much stress on testosterone levels.”
Banda has been declared eligible by both Fifa and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and has competed at a World Cup and two Olympic Games, as well as in domestic leagues across four continents.
Executive director of the NWSL Players’ Association, Meghann Burke, defended Banda, saying: “The lowest form of discourse is personal insult cloaked with racism and lies, on X no less. Barbra Banda is a proud member of @nwsl_players. She is the best of us. Just so we’re clear, @jk_rowling: you come for her, you come for all of us. Me first. Let’s go.”
Burke also suggested those concerned about Banda’s participation should focus on other issues in Zambian women’s football. These include midfielder Grace Chanda’s case against the FAZ for failing to provide reasonable care after an injury or the multiple sexual misconduct allegations against Zambia women’s head coach Bruce Mwape, which he denies.
Does Banda have DSD?
If anything good came from boxing’s Olympic gender row this summer, it’s an increased general awareness of differences in sex development (DSD), a range of 40-plus conditions affecting men and women.
Some DSD conditions are recognisable at birth, while others show symptoms during puberty. It is not abnormal for DSD to be diagnosed only in medical operations or autopsies.
Possible complications of DSD include presenting as externally female while having internal testes and no uterus, or Klinefelter syndrome, in which men have an extra X chromosome which can cause decreased testosterone levels.
There is no concrete evidence that Banda has ever taken a standard gender eligibility test or been found to have DSD.
What can cause raised levels of testosterone in women?
Men and women with high levels of natural testosterone are called “hyperandrogenic”. Testosterone contributes to muscle development, with heightened levels linked to greater strength and endurance – men tend to have 15 to 20 times more testosterone than women.
Multiple DSD conditions could contribute to a woman having heightened levels of testosterone, but there are still fundamental gaps in the science around this.
But there are studies suggesting black, sub-Saharan African women are disproportionately affected by naturally high testosterone levels, and that testosterone levels are generally higher among black athletes than Caucasian. However, far more of the relevant studies around this relate to men rather than women, so the science is far from fully developed.
And alongside this, the evidence that heightened testosterone levels in women inevitably lead to increased strength and endurance has recently been contested.
A 2021 study at Deakin University in Australia found that artificially raising a woman’s testosterone levels for 10 weeks increased muscle mass but not power, strength or maximum rate of oxygen consumption during exercise, the best indicator of respiratory fitness.
This suggests that Banda’s raised testosterone levels may not give her a tangible sporting advantage, and there is no evidence Banda is anything other than a woman with increased testosterone. To suggest she is a man is baseless.
According to findings presented at the European Society of Endocrinology in 2019, top female athletes are more likely to have higher testosterone levels and mild disorders.
What are Fifa’s rules on gender eligibility and sex testing – and who’s responsible?
Fifa’s rules on gender eligibility and sex testing have been in place since 2011 – Sepp Blatter is still named as president on the document. Despite announcing in 2022 they were reviewing these regulations “in consultation with expert stakeholders”, there has been no update on this review.
The current regulations state: “No mandatory or routine gender testing verification examinations will take place at Fifa competitions.
“It lies with each participating member association to prior to the nomination of its national team ensure the correct gender of all players.”
As is the case with CAF, this can mean different regional bodies have different regulatory standards. CAF’s focuses heavily on testosterone levels, which is why Banda has not been allowed to compete at Wafcon.
“The difference with the Fifa one is very simple,” Kamanga recently told the BBC.
“You have to have a protest, a procedure and the player has to consent to being subjected to all those things. I think the Fifa rule respects the privacy of the individual more than the CAF one.
“Just like the offside rule, where everyone uses the same rule, so the same should apply [regarding gender criteria] from club level right through to national teams.”
A recent study at Nottingham Trent University produced suggestions for Fifa’s updated regulations, with associate professor Seema Patel saying: “The rising presence of gender diverse people in the sport illustrates that football can be a welcoming and inclusive environment.
“However, there are a number of legal, regulatory and social barriers to inclusion across all levels of sport because of perceived difference. In other sports we have so far seen a tendency towards outright bans, based on inconclusive science without human rights considerations.
“There is no easy solution, but football has a unique platform to lead with care by encouraging healthy dialogues around inclusion in the sport, challenging misinformation and promoting understanding.
“Football’s globally influential position means that it can alter the current gender status quo through a collective approach to gender eligibility, which prioritises a thorough understanding of the diverse perspectives and experiences involved.”
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