'You have to speak up': Female powerlifter calls for gender testing after man wins 'World's Strongest Woman'

Powerlifter and strongman competitor Morgan Irons says gender testing and identification checks are necessary to keep women's sports for women only.

Irons' remarks came after a male athlete, Jammie Booker, recently defeated nine female competitors to win the coveted title of "World's Strongest Woman" at the 2025 Official Strongman Games.

'He basically said he really hoped that I would be at this next competition ...'

In an exclusive interview with Fearless, Irons said that not only does Booker have an obvious and unfair advantage, but he allegedly has been trash-talking female competitors in their own sport.

Irons said she had been messaging with Booker in a sort of mentor role, offering advice and generic chatter, before their communications soured.

"I generally just try to be a positive person, and that's what I got initially from Jammie in the beginning," Irons explained with a smile. She said Booker had left positive remarks on her videos, telling her she is amazing and offering congratulations.

"But then it quickly just turned really sour," Irons said, recalling that she started to realize something strange about Booker. "I realized that, 'OK, this isn't all adding up to me,' and I had already had questions myself."

When she decided to discuss this with people around her, Irons said she was advised not to say anything to avoid looking foolish or "like a bigot" if she was wrong.

Following up on her suspicions, Irons said she checked to see what Booker was doing from time to time in terms of competitions. It was then that she learned Booker had reportedly taken a hard turn and leaned into the idea of unabashedly beating women at their own game.

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"Jammie had some brazen words for me and some other athletes along the way," Irons revealed. She alleged that Booker was verbally letting it be known that he wanted to beat the other women — and beat them soundly.

"He basically said he really hoped that I would be at this next competition so that he could beat me and beat all the other top women in the sport, currently," Irons explained. "And I just find that odd. You know, you're less than a year in, and what do you want to do? You want to go after the women at the top?"

Fearless reached out to Booker to confirm whether or not he had made these or similar remarks or expressed any hostility toward his competitors. He did not respond.

Negative remarks did not just allegedly come from Booker. But as has become typical with women who don't wish to compete against men, Irons said she received a flurry of sarcastic comments on her social media videos like "work harder."

This would, of course, require Irons to somehow overcome biology itself.

The comments are "just ... it's a slap in the face," Irons said.

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Photo by GAIZKA IROZ/AFP via Getty Images

While Booker was promptly stripped of his title of strongest woman, Irons urged that this should be the last time this sort of situation should be allowed to happen, advocating medical testing.

The athlete firmly rejected the idea that there would be "genital checks" to confirm sex, a method Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) once said would result from barring men from women's sports. Instead, Irons championed cheek swabs for a DNA test and having to provide identification.

While she recognized that many states allow for one's gender to be legally changed, Irons laughed that it is still shocking that every time she enters a competition, there is no ID check.

Irons relayed that it is essential to protect women's sports, not just for now but for athletes in the future.

"You have to speak up. You just have to. Not even just for yourself, but for the next generation of women," she said. "We've sat back and we've let this happen for so long, and that's why we're in the situation that we're in. ... It is women's fault in a way that we've let it get to this point."

Remarking on the entirety of the situation, former national champion gymnast Jennifer Sey has cemented herself in the position that there can be zero tolerance for the idea that men can compete in women's sports.

She stated to Fearless that the blame should be put on the men who want to crush women in their own athletics.

"The gall to enter a competition for women to be the strongest woman in the world as a dude. Like, the arrogance and the dismissiveness of actual women required to do that — it's just disgusting. It's gross," she added.

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