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“It was a very scientific, factual and unemotional presentation which quite clearly laid out the evidence.”
That comment is from a Monday story in The Times (London), referring to a presentation made by International Olympic Committee medical director Dr. Jane Thornton (CAN) at a meeting of the IOC’s “Protection of the Female Category” working group, established on 5 September.
One of four such groups, but the only one whose members have not been identified “to protect the integrity of the group and their work,” apparently received the presentation well. According to The Times report:
“Sources said the presentation by Thornton, a Canadian former Olympic rower, stated that scientific evidence showed there were physical advantages to being born male that remained with athletes, including those who had taken treatment to reduce testosterone levels.”
The Times story indicated that action on the working group’s effort, and a possible ban on transgender women and women with “differences in sexual development” could be presented for approval to the IOC membership as early as the 145th IOC Session at the Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games in February.
The IOC Executive Board will meet on 9-10 December and the annual Olympic Summit will take in Lausanne (SUI) on 11 December, where a position could be taken by Olympic “stakeholders.”
In response to an inquiry from the BBC, the IOC responded that “the working group is continuing its discussions on this topic and no decisions have been taken yet.”
Nevertheless, the leak to The Times indicates that there is movement toward the position taken by World Athletics, which imposed a requirement on 30 June 2025 for a once-in-a-lifetime test for the SRY gene, present in males. The concept has been endorsed further by the International Ski & Snowboard Federation (FIS), which has not adopted a timetable, but is working with its member federations on how to implement the requirement, possibly by 2027.
The concept was initially trumpeted by Reem Alsalem (JOR), the United Nations Special Rapporteur for violence against girls and women in an August 2024 report. She explained in an October 2024 news conference:
● “In order to ensure, fairness, dignity and safety for all, including females – women and girls, females – we would need to maintain a female-only category in sports, while at the same time also having more ‘open’ categories for those wishing to play sports in categories that do not respond to the sex they were born into.
“That is one thing. The other thing is, as requested by many women and girls in sports, is to bring back – or actually not bring back – is to introduce sex screening, which as you know was discontinued in 1999.
“So that should be sex screening have become a lot more reliable now, cheap, can be administered in a confidential, dignified manner, should be introduced … as an element of – what was that called – eligibility, in female sports.”
● “As we know from the many studies that we have, males have a biological advantage in sports, especially during and after puberty, and artificial suppression of testosterone does not do away with this advantage. This is what the scientists and the experts are saying, not to mention pressuring anyone to artificially suppress testosterone in order to qualify for any category also raises ethical and human rights issues, which I also spoke about in the report, and should therefore also not be done.”
The IOC has gone through many phases in the women’s eligibility area and did sex testing until ending it in 1999. It adopted a 2015 “consensus” statement which allowed competitors into the women’s category if their testosterone levels were below a threshold of 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months.
In November 2021, it adopted the IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics, which called for preventing an athlete’s entry into a competition based on their self-determined gender identity only on the basis of research that shows a demonstrated advantage.
That appears to be where the IOC is headed now, but with new research, but a sure legal challenge coming to any new regulations. The IOC may find scientific backing for its new position, but the SRY-gene test has been criticized as imperfect, so it will undoubtedly be tested in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, European Court of Human Rights and all other forums which may be available.
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