Olympics Committee Faces New Pressure on Transgender Policies After World Athletics Introduces Sex Testing

All eyes are on the International Olympic Committee’s newly elected president for a decision on whether the world’s preeminent sporting body will continue allowing transgender athletes to compete in female-only Olympic events.The incoming IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, who secured the top spot in elections last week, has said that it would not be a “bad idea” to conduct sex testing.“This is a conversation that’s happened, and the international federations have taken a far greater lead in this conversation,” she told Sky News. “What I was proposing is to bring a group together with the international federations and really understand each sport is slightly different. We know in equestrian, sex is really not an issue, but in other sports it is.”“So, what I’d like to do again is bring the international federations together and sit down and try and come up with a collective way forward for all of us to move.”The attention on Ms. Coventry comes following an announcement Tuesday by World Athletics, which governs most international track and field and running events, that it will introduce mandatory testing to verify the biological sex of any person entering female competitions going forward.The new measure comes just more than two years after World Athletics made the decision to exclude athletes who were born male but identify as female from competing in female-only sports events.The council is exploring the use of non-invasive cheek swab or dry blood tests — in which samples are blotted onto a strip of filter paper — to verify if an athlete has transitioned to female after going through male puberty or if there is a difference in sex development.“This we feel is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition,” World Athletics president and former distance runner Lord Sebastian Coe said during a press conference Tuesday.“The process is very straightforward, frankly, very clear and it’s an important one and we will work on the timelines,” he added. “Neither of these are invasive. They are necessary and they will be done to absolute medical standards.”The new ruling follows President Trump’s recent ban through an executive order on transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports in America. The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” mandates that Title IX, a federal law banning sex discrimination in student athletics, should be interpreted as also prohibiting men who identify as women from participating in female sports.Mr. Trump’s order will also affect visa policies for athletes who travel to America to compete in the Olympics, which will take place at Los Angeles in 2028, or other sporting events.

Olympics Committee Faces New Pressure on Transgender Policies After World Athletics Introduces Sex Testing

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