World's Strongest Woman winner Jammie Booker loses title for being 'biologically male'

Britain's Andrea Thompson has thus been crowned World's Strongest Woman, after originally having been placed second

American athlete Jammie Booker has been disqualified as the 2025 World's Strongest Woman after organisers said they discovered she is “biologically male”. While Booker was yet to respond, the move has reignited the global debate on transgender participation in sports.

Jammie Booker on the podium after originally winning the title in Texas. (Photo: Insta/@officialstrongmangames)

Britain's Andrea Thompson has thus been crowned World's Strongest Woman, after originally having been placed second, ABC News reported.

Australian Allira-Joy Cowley has now been given the second place in the Women's Open at the Official Strongman Games World Championship. In the event in Texas last weekend, she was originally awarded third place.

Jammie Booker had narrowly defeated Britain's Thompson for the crown.

Organisers have now released a statement declaring that Booker had been stripped of the title and disqualified from the competition. They said they would not have permitted Booker to participate in the Women's Open category if they had known the athlete had been born "biologically male", a claim which is yet to be proven. No evidence has yet been shown to make the claim.

The competition has stringent rules mandating that competitors can only participate in the category matching the biological sex recorded at birth.

Now the title-holder, Thompson described the entire experience as “exhausting”, and said her momentous occasion was “overshadowed by scandal and dishonesty”.

The organisers' statement read: “Official Strongman is inclusive and proud to run events which do not discriminate against athletes based on personal characteristics. Any athlete is welcome. But it is our responsibility to ensure fairness and ensure athletes are assigned to men 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.”