As written in The Conversation by Sarah Teetzel, professor of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, Marcus Mazzucco, adjunct lecturer in Sports Law, University of Toronto and Silvia Camporesi, professor of Ethics and Sports Integrity, KU Leuven.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced a new policy on the protection of the women’s category that will force thousands of elite women athletes from around the world to undergo genetic sex testing in order to compete.
Critics argue the policy is based on weak science and raises urgent and important questions about fairness and human rights. It requires athletes seeking to participate in the women’s category at IOC events, such as the Olympic Games and the Youth Olympic Games, to undergo screening for the sex-determining region Y (SRY) gene.
The IOC’s policy is an extension of the genetic sex testing practices recently adopted by international sport federations for athletics, swimming, boxing and skiing and snowboarding. It also encourages other international sport federations to implement similar exclusionary policies for competitions outside the Olympics.
The purpose of the test is to identify and exclude transgender women and women with sex variations due to the perception that they threaten the integrity of women’s sport. Athletes who test positive for the SRY gene are ineligible for the women’s category, unless they can demonstrate complete insensitivity to testosterone through clinical evaluations.
Global backlash raises red flags
While groups advocating to restrict eligibility in women’s sport are celebrating this return to genetic screening, the implications are deeply troubling. The use of genetic sex testing in sport was discredited and abandoned in the 1990s due to scientific, ethical and legal concerns — all of which remain relevant today.
The IOC moved ahead with its new policy despite stern warnings and petitions from United Nations experts, 140 human rights and sport advocacy organizations and more than 90 legal experts worldwide.
Read the full story at The Conversation.
