Has the International Olympic Committee (IOC) been labeled a coward? After the new guidelines suggested that transgender women should no longer need to reduce their testosterone levels to compete in the female categories.
As part of the new frameworks that will replace existing guidelines from 2015, the IOC said that trans women should not be assumed to have advantages over female rivals.
This reverses the previous position, although the IOC pointed out that the burden is on the governing bodies of individual sports to determine their rules, leading some to call the guidelines a “fudge” and accusing the organization of passing the responsibility. .
The IOC says decisions on such issues must be made with a nod to “robust, peer-reviewed science … that demonstrates a consistent, unfair and disproportionate competitive advantage and / or unpredictable risk to athlete safety.”
The new document boasts 10 points and was drafted after consulting over 250 athletes and stakeholders. The launch is scheduled after the Beijing Winter Games early next year.
The new facilities also apply to athletes who have sexual development differences (DSDs), such as South African 800-meter runner Caster Semenya.
However, organizations such as World Athletics have already stated that they have no plans to change their rules, which require any athlete with a DSD to reduce testosterone to less than five n / mol to compete in competitions with a distance of between 400 meters and a mile.
Previously, the IOC had recommended trans women to suppress testosterone levels below 10 n / mol per liter at least 12 months prior to competition.
Earlier this year, however, medical director Richard Budgett said the policy had become obsolete.
“What we’re saying now is that you don’t need to use testosterone at all,” Budgett said of the new guidelines.
“But this guide is not an absolute rule. So we can’t say that the picture in a particular sport, like World Athletics, is actually wrong.
“They have to make it right for their sport and this framework offers them a process through which they can do it, thinking about inclusion and then seeing what produces a disproportionate advantage.”
Welcoming the new IOC guidelines were the Canadian Olympic gold medalist and footballer Quinn.
“This new IOC structure is revolutionary in the way it reflects what we know to be true: that athletes like me and my colleagues participate in sports without any inherent advantage and that our humanity deserves to be respected,” said the footballer.
Less receptive, however, was fellow transsexual athlete Joanna Harper, who is the visiting colleague at Loughborough University for transgender athletic performance.
“It is important that the IOC has come out in favor of the inclusion of trans and intersex athletes, but I think sections five and six of the framework are problematic,” said Harper.
“Transgender women are on average taller, bigger and stronger than cis women and these are advantages in many sports,” she continued.
“It is also unreasonable to ask sports federations to have solid, peer-reviewed research before imposing restrictions on trans athletes in elite sport. Such research will take years if not decades.”
Backlash from women’s campaign groups is also expected.
Some had hoped the IOC would follow the stance of the UK’s five sports councils, which said in September that there was no magic solution to inclusion in women’s sport for trans women ensuring fairness and safety for all.
To that end, sports across the country have been told that what they want to prioritize is their choice.
Online, other criticisms have seen the IOC guidelines dubbed a “soup of words” and a “mess.”
“The only context in which this decision makes sense is if they will eliminate categories of sex,” reads a reply.
Elsewhere, former British marathon runner Mara Yamauchi called the guidelines “a disaster”.
“It will create a mountain of work to tell us what we already know about sex-based performance; full of political clichés but little clear and useful guidance based on facts and science; it will reduce women’s sport,” wrote the runner.
“[The IOC] it could have unequivocally protected the female category to encourage women and girls to play sport with the guarantee of fair and meaningful competition. They chose not to. “
Former UK swimming star Sharron Davis echoed these sentiments, calling it a “cowardly shift of responsibility”.
“How can testosterone be on the banned drug list but not a problem if born male in female sport? Men get fair sport [but] women don’t, “wrote Davis.
(RT.com)
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