TL;DR: The International Olympic Committee has announced that, from the Los Angeles games in 2028, all women will be subject to a gender verification 'sex test' that will ban trans women from all Olympic events. Men will not be subject to sex testing.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced it will restart 'sex testing', a practice its own internal report said was scientifically flawed, discriminatory, and a cause of emotional trauma when it ended the practice 30 years ago.
IOC president Kirsty Coventry said the policy was the result of a review "led by medical experts". To be eligible for female categories in the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, women will be "determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening."
The SRY gene is found on the Y chromosome, associated with the male sex. However, it is found in intersex women too. The announcement says that "with the rare exception" of athletes with 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", athletes with an SRY-positive screen will not be able to take part in female category Olympic events.
The move has been condemned by over 100 human rights groups, who say the guidelines are “a blunt and discriminatory response that is not supported by science and violates international human rights law” - The Guardian
The Olympics ended 'gender verification' tests in 1999 after a series of reports over the period of a decade set out how they were scientifically flawed, discriminatory, and caused emotional trauma to those tested. The position was adopted after the recommendations of an internal report that compiled this evidence - Genetics In Medicine
That report was compiled by Johann Olav Koss, and though it was never published it has been detailed in a number of studies since. Koss argued that not only was the test medically inconsistent, but it was also discriminatory as it only targeted women. In the thirty years the testing did take place, no one was found 'to not be female' - Journal of Genetic Counselling
As the tests are reinstituted again, people wishing to compete in male categories will not be subject to them, and trans women - or anyone found with the SRY gene, unless they are intersex under the specific criteria found above - will be able to compete in the male category.
Kirsty Coventry put the issue to the top of her agenda when she took over the organisation. In her first meeting as the new IOC President, she said that there is now “overwhelming support” among Committee members to “protect the female category” - QueerAF
Groups including ILGA World, Humans of Sport and the Sports and Rights Alliance warned a sex testing and blanket ban policy would be a "catastrophic erosion of women’s rights and safety"
Andrea Florence, Executive Director of the Sport & Rights Alliance, added that “gender policing and exclusion harms all women and girls, and undermines the very dignity and fairness the IOC claims to uphold."
Analysis: Gender is an arbitrary line to draw fairness on
Dividing competitions along gender lines is one of the most arbitrary measures you can choose to make sport fair.
But we’ve seen decades of hyper focus around Trans+ and intersex inclusion at the Olympics, which has only ever seen one trans woman compete, and none have achieved a medal.
It’s manifested many times, from the controversy around Imane Khelif, a cisgender woman who faced misinformation about her gender, to Laurel Hubbard, who competed in the women’s +87kg super-heavyweight category in 2021 as the first trans women to take part in the games, to the ever-present focus on Caster Semenya, who only ended a seven-year legal challenge against sex eligibility rules in track and field last year.
Commentators have been quick to point out that this is another example of a change framed as 'protecting women' that seeks to solve a non-existent issue. Its effect will instead police women's gender presentation even further and write a blank cheque for right-wing media and pundits to pursue patriarchal, discriminatory rhetoric unchecked.
We need more investment in queer accountability journalism.
Our rights are under attack, and navigating how to fight back is only possible with quality, fact-checked, accessible information - written by LGBTQIA+ journalists.
We're a small but mighty publisher, and are so glad you trust us every week to bring you a selection of the top queer news, unique perspectives and content everyone's talking about in this newsletter.
If QueerAF had more resources, I can assure you - we'd double down even further on our investigations and news output, but even more so: We'd train, mentor and invest in an even bigger new generation of queer journalists.
In just four years, we've supported 150 LGBTQIA+ creatives to develop their craft and careers.
We're not going anywhere, and that work continues.
We can't do it without you, so if you can - please start your monthly or annual membership to QueerAF, so we can help even more people fight back.
