Last summer, the governing body for international swimming banned most transgender athletes from competing in women’s events. They banned athletes who had transitioned after age 12, and are looking into setting up a “special competition” category for transgender athletes.
Now, the World Athletics Council, the organization that governs international track competitions, has followed suit and will ban transgender athletes who transitioned after age 12 and have gone through male puberty.
The group has also set strict rules on so-called “differences in sex development” (DSD), where some females are given an advantage with naturally occurring testosterone and other male hormones.
The decision will not be popular with LGBTQ supporters. But more and more international sports governing bodies are recognizing the idiocy of allowing boys who have developed male bodies to compete as women against women.
“World Athletics conducted a consultation period with various stakeholders in the first two months of this year, including Member Federations, the Global Athletics Coaches Academy and Athletes’ Commission, the IOC as well as representative transgender and human rights groups,” the organization said.
“It became apparent that there was little support within the sport for the option that was first presented to stakeholders, which required transgender athletes to maintain their testosterone levels below 2.5nmol/L for 24 months to be eligible to compete internationally in the female category.
DSD athletes are a different story but are also subject to excessive levels of male hormones.
The NHS describes DSD as “a group of rare conditions involving genes, hormones, and reproductive organs, including genitals. It means a person’s sex development is different to most other people’s.”
Currently, three world-class female runners present with DSD, including a two-time Olympic gold medal winner in the 800-meter race, Caster Semenya. The new rules for DSD athletes may prevent her from competing in anything but long-distance races.
Athletes with sex development differences, such as Semenya and Olympic 200-meter silver medalist Christine Mboma of Namibia, are not transgender, although the two issues share similarities when it comes to sports.
Such athletes were legally identified as female at birth but have a medical condition that leads to some male traits, including high levels of testosterone that World Athletics argues gives them the same kind of unfair advantage as transgender athletes.
Semenya has been running in longer events. She finished 13th in her qualifying heat at 5,000 meters at world championships last year. In a recent interview, she said she was aiming to run in the Olympics at a longer distance.
Semenya will have to undergo hormone-suppressing treatments for six months — something she has said she would never do again after having undergone the treatment a decade ago under different rules. But Semenya and other DSD athletes identify as women. They live their lives as women. The issue of DSD athletes competing with women is a question of hormones and not biological sex.
“All the decisions we’ve taken have their challenges,” Coe said. “If that’s the case, then we will do what we have done in the past, which is vigorously defend our position. And the overarching principle for me is we will always do what we think is in the best interest of our sport.”
Most women — even if they don’t say so out loud — fervently agree.
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