Olympic chiefs introduce ‘monumental’ transgender policies to keep elite women’s sport ‘fair’

Olympic chiefs have updated their transgender policies to “preserve” fairness in elite women’s sport.

Allowing trans women to compete in women’s categories has become the focus of an increasingly bitter battle, with high-profile cases such as US swimmer Lia Thomas and British cyclist Emily Bridges being the subject of heated debate.

The International Olympic Committee has been criticized by leading athletes including former swimmer Sharron Davies and cyclist Nicole Cooke for adopting new guidelines 13 months ago that said there should be “no acceptance of benefits” for trans women hoping to be in to compete in the female category.

Olympia chiefs have introduced a new set of transgender policies in elite women’s sport

The transgender community and human rights defenders have welcomed the framework for its emphasis on inclusion and diversity, but the IOC has still received repeated calls to update it and provide more detailed guidance for individual sports that have sought to update their policies.

The new statement is presented as a clarification of the existing framework. It reads, at least in part, as an attempt to address the main criticisms leveled at the earlier guidelines, which also angered women’s groups and members of the scientific and medical community.

Perhaps most notably, it advises global sports federations to give equal consideration to inclusion of transgender athletes and fairness to women when creating eligibility criteria.

The statement, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, also says that input from scientific and medical experts, along with human rights defenders, should be taken into account when setting eligibility criteria.

Sports scientists and medical professionals linked to the IOC had said they were overlooked when the original statement was drafted.

Yannis Pitsiladis, co-author of the statement and a member of the IOC’s Medical and Scientific Commission, said The Post on Sunday: “This updated position statement on the IOC Framework and the extraordinary effort that has been made to develop this consensus on what it can mean in practice is, in my opinion, the most important and constructive development in this area since the IOC was published -Consensus opinion on the issue in 2015.”

Former swimmer Sharron Davies was among the professional athletes who criticized the IOC

The IOC’s existing framework on ‘fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination based on gender identity and gender variation’ was published last November with 10 categories or ‘principles’. The new 5,188-word statement takes each in turn and clarifies them for the benefit of each sport’s governing body.

It addresses the position that there should be “no presumption of benefit” for trans women hoping to compete in the female category.

The new statement reads: “Principle 4 [fairness] Recognizes that sports organizations sometimes need to establish eligibility criteria for single-sex competitions to ensure a fair and proportionate distribution of competitive advantages among participants.

“It also recognizes the special importance of promoting equality for women in sport and maintaining fair and meaningful competition for elite female athletes, which in some cases may require criteria limiting eligibility.”

The International Federation of Sports Medicine (FIMS) co-released a position paper in January stating that the statement was “drafted primarily from a human rights perspective”. The influential FIMS paper had 38 signatories, including many leading exercise scientists and medical professionals.

However, the new opinion advises sports organizations to take a holistic approach when developing gender inclusion policies. 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 to the statement: Professor Pitsiladis; Lenka Dienstbach-Wech, trauma surgeon and Chair of the Athletes’ Commission of the World Rowing Federation and former World Champion in the sport; plus Fabio Pigozzi, President of FIMS and President of the Italian Anti-Doping Organization.

Pitsiladis added: “Beyond the text, this statement signals a monumental change in approach to unifying science, medicine, law and human rights. This is the main achievement here.

“And while we are just getting started, we now have the foundation and determination to do whatever is necessary to best serve individual IFs [international federations] to develop their own policies that are evidence-based, fair and as comprehensive as possible.’

Other authors of the statement include Richard Budgett, the IOC’s medical and scientific director, Magali Martowicz, the head of the IOC’s human rights department, Katia Mascagni, the head of public affairs, and Madeleine Pape of Australia, the former Olympic middle-distance runner, who is a is a gender and inclusion specialist at the IOC.

Governing bodies for individual sports have deviated from the framework over the last year when they updated their gender suitability guidelines. Swimmming’s FINA said only those trans women who transitioned before age 12 could compete against adult women.

The UCI has halved the upper limit for testosterone production from 5 nanomoles per liter to 2.5 nanomoles/liter and doubled the minimum transition period from 12 to 24 months.

The IOC has been criticized for dropping a recommended testosterone limit of 5 nmol/L. But the new statement “recognises that testosterone may be an important factor influencing the performance of elite athletes in certain sports.”

However, it adds that testosterone alone is too crude a determinant of an athlete’s fitness. Instead, it states that all criteria should be based on robust data sourced from the regulated athlete group – i.e., in their case, trans women – and should take into account the specific requirements of an individual sport.

Richard Budgett, the IOC’s Medical and Scientific Director, was a former UK team doctor

He cites Australian Rules Football as an example. Its elite transgender eligibility policy includes, among other things, an assessment of transgender athletes’ height, weight, bench press, and squad skills.

The statement also highlights the lack of adequate research into the performance levels of elite transgender athletes and calls for more funding from stakeholders to support further studies.

He also recommends that gender-specific eligibility criteria should, in principle, only be used in elite sport and not in grassroots sport. Instead, youth and community sport should prioritize the inclusion of transgender and DSD athletes.

On the subject of safety, the statement said the eligibility criteria should focus on physical metrics that determine the risk that exists for both other athletes and the athlete in question – examples of size and strength are given – rather than relying on leaving the athlete’s gender identity or gender variations “as a proxy for injury risk”.

The IOC framework covers both trans athletes and athletes with differences in sexual development, such as: B. Caster Semenya, which in some cases produce higher levels of testosterone than other women.

The new statement makes points that are likely to apply specifically to DSD athletes, including advising that they should not undergo “unnecessary medical procedures” and that any eligibility criteria should be abandoned if compliance with those criteria puts the athlete at risk of harm.

Some DSD athletes have suffered prejudice in their home communities when their gender status has been exposed through sport.

However, the statement also concludes that over time there should be “separate policy approaches” for the two communities.

The framework covers athletes with differences in sexual development, like Caster Semenya