by Olympic leaders have introduced a ‘monumental’ set of transgender guidelines to ‘preserve’ fairness in elite women’s sport.
Allowing trans women to compete in women’s categories has become the subject of an increasingly uphill battle, with high-profile cases such as American swimmer Lia Thomas and British cyclist Emily Bridges being hotly debated. .
The International Olympic Committee has come under fire from leading female athletes such as former swimmer Sharron Davies and cyclist Nicole Cooke for approving new guidelines 13 months ago which stated there should be “no presumption More” for trans women hoping to compete in the women’s category.
Olympic chiefs have introduced a new set of transgender guidelines in elite women’s sport
The transgender community and human rights advocates have praised the framework for its focus on inclusion and diversity, but the IOC has always faced repeated calls to update it and provide more detailed guidance to individual sports that have made efforts to update their policies.
The new statement reads, at least in part, as an attempt to address major criticisms leveled at the previous guidelines, which also angered women’s groups and members of the scientific and medical communities.
Perhaps most notably, he advises global sports bodies to give equal consideration to the inclusion of transgender athletes and equity for women when developing eligibility criteria.
Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the statement also says input from scientific and medical experts should be considered along with human rights advocates when defining eligibility criteria. Sports scientists and doctors linked to the IOC said they were ignored when the initial statement was drafted.
Yannis Pitsiladis, co-author of the statement and a member of the IOC’s Medical and Scientific Commission, told the Mail on Sunday: “This update to the position statement on the IOC’s framework and the extraordinary efforts that have been made to developing this consensus are, in my view, the most important and constructive development in this area since the publication of the IOC Consensus Statement on the subject in 2015.’
Former swimmer Sharron Davies was among professional athletes to criticize the IOC
The IOC’s existing framework on “Equity, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sexual Variation” was released in November last year, with 10 categories or “Principles “. The new 5,188-word statement addresses each in turn, clarifying them for the benefit of each sport’s governing bodies.
It addresses the position that there should be “no presumption of advantage” for trans women hoping to compete in the women’s category. The new statement says: ‘Principle 4 [fairness] recognizes that sports organizations may at times need to issue eligibility criteria for competitions separated by gender in order to maintain a fair and proportionate distribution of competitive advantages among participants.
“It also recognizes the particular importance of advancing equality for women in sport and preserving fair and meaningful competition for elite female athletes, which may require criteria that limit eligibility in some cases. “
The International Federation of Sports Medicine (FIMS) co-published a position paper in January saying the statement “was written primarily from a human rights perspective”. The influential FIMS document had 38 signatories, including many eminent scientists and sports physicians.
In contrast, the new statement advises sports federations to take a holistic approach when developing guidelines on gender inclusion. The authors say they should take into account “the current state of scientific and medical knowledge as well as ethical, legal, human rights and social considerations”.
Lia Thomas was the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I championship
Three of the authors of the FIMS paper are among the nine signatories of the position statement: Professor Pitsiladis; Lenka Dienstbach-Wech, trauma surgeon and chair of the World Rowing Federation Athletes’ Commission and former world champion in the sport; as well as Fabio Pigozzi, President of FIMS and President of the Italian Anti-Doping Organization.
Pitsiladis added, “Beyond the text, this position statement signals a monumental shift in modus operandi to unify science, medicine, law and human rights. This is the main achievement here. And although we are only at the beginning, we now have the foundation and the resolve to do what it takes to best help individual IFs. [international federations] to develop their own policy that is evidence-based, fair and as inclusive as possible.
The other authors of the statement are Richard Budgett, IOC Medical and Scientific Director, Magali Martowicz, IOC Human Rights Officer, Katia Mascagni, Public Affairs Officer, and Madeleine Pape of Australia, the former Olympic runner. middle distance who is a gender and inclusion specialist at the IOC.
Individual sports governing bodies have deviated from the framework over the past year by updating their gender eligibility guidelines. Swimmming’s FINA said only trans women who had transitioned before the age of 12 could compete against adult women. The UCI halved the upper limit of testosterone production from five nanomoles per liter to 2.5 nmole/l and doubled the minimum transition period from 12 to 24 months.
The IOC has been criticized for abandoning a recommended testosterone limit of 5 nmol/l. But the new statement “recognizes that testosterone may be an important factor shaping the performance of elite athletes in certain sports.”
However, he adds that testosterone alone is too crude a determinant of an athlete’s eligibility. Instead, it says any criteria must be based on solid data drawn from the regulated group of athletes – i.e. trans women in their case – and must take into account the specific requirements of a individual sport.
IOC medical and scientific director Richard Budgett was a former British team doctor
As an example, he cites Australian rules football. Its elite transgender eligibility policy includes an assessment of the height, weight, bench press and team abilities of trans athletes, among other metrics.
The position statement also highlights the lack of proper research on performance levels of elite transgender athletes and calls for more funding from stakeholders to support further study.
It further recommends that gender-based eligibility criteria, in principle, should only be applied in elite sport and not at grassroots level. Instead, in youth and community sport, the inclusion of transgender and DSD athletes should be a priority.
On the issue of safety, the statement says eligibility criteria should focus on the physical parameters that determine the risk posed both to other athletes and to the athlete in question – it cites examples of height and potency – rather than relying on the athlete’s gender identity or sex. variations “as an indicator of the risk of injury”.
The IOC framework covers both transathletes and athletes with differences in sexual development, such as Caster Semenya, who in some cases produce higher testosterone levels than other women. The new statement includes points that are likely to apply in particular to DSD athletes, including the advice that they should not be subjected to “unnecessary medical interventions” and that any eligibility criteria should be dropped if compliance with these places the athlete at risk of harm. . Some DSD athletes have experienced prejudice in their home communities when their gender status has come to light because of the sport.
However, the statement also concludes that over time there should be “distinct policy approaches” for the two communities.
The framework covers athletes with differences in sexual development, such as Caster Semenya
