A group of 38 medical experts and leading sports health professionals have signed a statement arguing that the IOC’s framework for transgender participation threatens to undermine the integrity of sport.
The position paper from individuals linked with the International Federation of Sports Medicine and European Federation of Sports Medicine Associations warns that the new guidelines on gender identity and sex variations are not ‘scientific or medically based’ and are unfair on female athletes. The statement will be published in the British Medical Journal Open Sport & Exercise Medicine on Monday.
It is understood that the position paper criticises the framework, which the International Olympic Committee published in November, for not prioritising the safety of women competing in elite sport and warns that it could lead to athletes ‘self-identifying’ into the gender category of their choice.
New Zealand's Laurel Hubbard, who is transgender, competed at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021
The position paper is said to further argue that the guidelines could lead to trans athletes and athletes with differences in sexual development (DSD) being excluded from sport without any reasonable justification.
Its authors include the head of World Athletics’ medical department, the medical director of cycling’s ruling body the UCI and the chair of World Rowing’s medicine commission, as well as medical experts who work with World Triathlon, the International Paralympic Committee and World Netball. Two member of the IOC’s medical and scientific commission have also authored it.
It is also understood that the authors felt the IOC wrongly overlooked medical and scientific expertise and focused on input from the human-rights lobby when consulting various stakeholders ahead of redrafting the guidelines. Human-rights experts strongly disputed that assertion when approached by this newspaper.
Professor Jurgen Steinacker, the chair of World Rowing’s Sports Medicine Commission, is one of the position paper’s co-authors. Professor Steinacker told Sportsmail that the IOC guidelines are prejudiced against cisgender female athletes in elite sport.
‘It is true that it is only fair on transwomen to respect their choice to compete against cisgender women but fairness is always bidirectional and one group cannot decide what is fair for another. In this case, I think what they are doing is unfair on females,’ Professor Steinacker said.
‘Sport is inclusive but it is inclusive until it comes to winning medals. If you want to compete as a female in sport you face biological disadvantages compared to cisgender males that must be mitigated against. We need to set a limit that respects the right of females to compete on equal terms. If you create a definition of gender that is based on social rather than biological differences then you effectively destroy the female category.’
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The IOC’s previous guidelines, which were published in 2015, stipulated that trans athletes should be allowed to compete in the female category only if their testosterone-production was suppressed to below 10 nanomoles per litre for the 12 months before competition. Many of the authors of the position paper were part of the consultation that led to this framework. World
