“I understand that this is (a) very sensitive topic,” Kirsty Coventry, president of the IOC, said in a short video. “As a former athlete, I passionately believe in the rights of all Olympians to take part in fair competition.”
Coventry continued, “The policy that we have announced is based on science that has been led by medical experts with the best interests of athletes at its heart. The scientific evidence is very clear: male chromosomes give performance advantages in sports that rely on strength, power or endurance.
“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat. So it’s absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”
In addition to fairness based on scientifically proven advantages, Coventry said, “In some sports, it simply would not be safe” for biological males to compete with women.
Watching Coventry mouth this obvious statement makes one wonder when the world lost all commonsense. Even a fool-headed witch-burning character in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” would understand this simple fact about the differences between men and women.
According to the IOC’s statement, its new policy was developed by its Working Group on the Protection of the Female Category, which “reviewed the latest scientific evidence, including developments since 2021 (when its previous policy was instituted) 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.”
According to the group, this should involve using the “most accurate and least intrusive method currently available to verify biological sex,” which means “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.”
Coventry said that athletes will only need to be screened once in their lifetimes, noting that, “The Olympic Games has a focus on elite sport, and in elite sport, we must ensure the fairness, safety and integrity of all competitions within the Games.”
While the IOC recommends its policy be adopted by other governing bodies “when exercising their responsibility in implementing eligibility rules in relation to IOC events,” its statement points out that it “does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs.”
Biological males will thus continue to be eligible to compete in grassroots and recreational programs, unless prevented by those organizations or local laws, but will be unable to compete in the female category at the Olympic level.
How many females in these leagues will drop out due to the fear of competing with a biological male who has physical advantages over them? How many will throw in the towel after sustaining an injury from a biological male? How many will give up because it should already be part of the rules and expressing fears about their safety or desire for fairness will lead to them being isolated or called bigots?
It appears the work of protecting female sports has only just begun.
Unfortunately, there’s a caveat in the IOC’s new policy. It takes effect as of the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, but will not be applied retroactively.
This means that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif will keep the gold women’s welterweight medal won in Paris in 2024, despite the fact that the SRY gene has been detected in Khelif, who also admitted in an interview with French sports news L’Équipe to having undergone hormone treatments to lower testosterone levels ahead of those Games.
Based on the IOC’s new scientific standards, Khelif’s gold medal should rightfully go to opponent, China’s Yang Liu. If these standards were applied retroactively, another boxer at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Lin Yu-ting, would likely also have to give the featherweight gold medal won at the same tournament to Poland’s Julia Szeremeta.
Both Lin and Khelif were disqualified by the International Boxing Association from the 2023 World Championships after failing gender eligibility tests, but still went on to win Olympic gold medals in female categories.
Source: https://nationalpost.com
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