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≡ “FEMALE CATEGORY” RULES ≡
International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry (ZIM) said that the “protection of the female category” would be one of her priorities and on Thursday (26th), the IOC announced a new policy for women in the Games:
“The policy explains that, for all disciplines on the sports programme of an IOC event, including the Olympic Games and for both individual and team sports, eligibility for any female category is limited to biological females.
“Eligibility for the female category is to be determined in the first instance by SRY gene screening to detect the absence or presence of the SRY gene.
“Based on scientific evidence, the IOC considers that the presence of the SRY gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced male sex development. Furthermore, the IOC considers that SRY gene screening via saliva, cheek swab or blood sample is unintrusive compared to other possible methods.
“Athletes who screen negative for the SRY gene permanently satisfy this policy’s eligibility criteria for competition in the female category. Unless there is reason to believe that a negative reading is in error, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime test.”
This new policy, which replaces a 2021 policy which allowed federations to pretty much do whatever they wanted, follows the lead of World Athletics, which implemented this same policy and required female contestants for its 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo (JPN) last September to comply within about three months and this was successfully achieved.
In terms of the basis for the decision, the IOC’s announcement noted:
“The working group reviewed the latest scientific evidence, including developments since 2021, and reached a clear consensus. Male sex provides a performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power and endurance. To ensure fairness, and to protect safety, particularly in contact sports, eligibility should therefore be based on biological sex.
“The group also agreed that the most accurate and least intrusive method currently available to verify biological sex is screening for the SRY gene, a segment of DNA typically found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero and indicates the presence of testes/testicles.”
There is a small exception, for “athletes with a diagnosis of Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) or other rare differences/disorders in sex development (DSDs) who do not benefit from the anabolic and/or performance-enhancing effects of testosterone.”
Dr. Jane Thornton (CAN), the IOC’s Health, Medicine and Science Director, said at a follow-up news conference:
“We reached consensus that male sex confers performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power, and/or endurance. And to protect fairness in such sports and events, as well as safety, particularly in contact sports – so combat, collision and projectile sports – that it would be necessary and adequate to base eligibility in competition on biological sex.”
She noted findings that testosterone jumps in males occur three times – in utero, in infancy and in adolescence and continuing from there – and with highly circulating testosterone, “males have larger and stronger skeletal and bone, larger and stronger hearts, larger lung size, more red blood cells and lower body fat than females trained to an equivalent level.
“Together, these attributes afford males individual sex-based performance advantages in sports and events that rely on strength, power and endurance. … Finally, the XY transgender athletes and athletes with certain XY differences and disorders in sex development have anatomical and physiological advantages in line with being male.”
She noted that there is no indication that testosterone suppression or other hormonal treatments eliminates this advantage. And:
“When the working group looked at the magnitude of advantage, that at the elite level, the magnitude is different, depending on the sport or event, but 10-12% advantage in most running or swimming events, 20% male performance advantage in most throwing and jumping events, and male performance advantage can be greater than 100% in events which involve explosive power, so collision, lifting and punching sports.
“This varies across sports, but in particular in contact sports, the strength and power differential between male and female may increase safety risks to female athletes.”
The announcement also specified that the policy relates specifically to Olympic events:
“This policy should be adopted by IFs and other sports governing bodies, such as NOCs, National Federations and Continental Associations, when exercising their responsibility in implementing eligibility rules in relation to IOC events only.”
How the testing is going to be done, who keeps the records and the inevitable legal challenges are all yet to be sorted through. But Coventry’s IOC has made its stand on women in sport, and interestingly, came to the same conclusion as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem (JOR), made in 2024, calling for the re-introduction of sex-screening, which the IOC had abandoned in 1999.
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