Earlier this year World Athletics announced males would be banned from women's events.
However, various nations have apparently been skirting those rules with differences of sex development (DSD) runners.
Essentially, a DSD runner is male who someone recorded as "female" at birth due to genetic disorders where male testes were not immediately apparent despite the infant having male XY chromosomes.
If these individuals continued to be raised as female (or were further "transitioned"), they have the physical appearance of a woman, but the chromosomes, testosterone, bone density, and strength of a man.
The Guardian reported that Stéphane Bermon, head of health and science at World Athletics, presented the following data at a scientific panel in Tokyo.
In total between 2000 and 2023, Bermon said there had been 135 DSD finalists in elite international events, given some of the 50 to 60 athletes competed in more than one final. He also showed a slide that said that DSD cases are 151.9 times more likely than would be expected given the number of DSD individuals in the general population.
That's a lot of dudes winning female events.
World Athletics is now following World Boxing's lead and requiring sex testing of all athletes.
Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, said,
The philosophy that we hold dear in World Athletics is the protection and the promotion of the integrity of women's sport. It is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling.
The test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case. We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female. It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology.
Now, they need to go back, review the races with DSD finalists, and award the medals to the biologic women who actually won all those races.
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