The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced a new framework for transgender and intersex athletes, which no longer requires them to medically suppress their testosterone levels in order to compete in the women’s sports category. In a six-page document, the IOC outlined 10 principles, which it described as grounded on the respect for internationally recognised human rights that sports competitions should follow.
“This Framework recognises both the need to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their gender identity or sex variations, can practise sport in a safe, harassment-free environment that recognises and respects their needs and identities,” the committee said in a press release. The IOC further said that the new framework is not legally binding and was developed following an extensive consultation with athletes, other sports organisations and experts in the fields of human rights, law and medicine.
Previously the IOC had recommended that transgender women suppress their testosterone levels to under 10 n/mol per litre for at least 12 months to compete. However earlier this year, the organisation’s medical director, Richard Budgett, had admitted that policy was no longer fit for purpose. The new IOC framework replaces its 2015 guidelines, also concludes that there should be no presumption that transgender women have an automatic advantage over natal women – a controversial view that reverses the IOC’s previous position.
The IOC’s new framework also applies to athletes with differences of sex development, such as the South African 800m runner Caster Semenya. However, the IOC says ultimately it is up to individual sports to decide their rules – and they can still impose restrictions on transgender women entering the female category if needed to ensure fair and safe competition. Such decisions, it adds, should be based on “robust and peer-reviewed science which demonstrates a consistent, unfair and disproportionate competitive advantage and/or an unpreventable risk to the safety of the athletes.”
Many transgender athletes from around the world have welcomed the new guidelines. “The new IOC Framework makes clear that no athlete has an inherent advantage and moves away from eligibility criteria focused on testosterone levels, a practice that caused harmful and abusive practices such as invasive physical examinations and sex testing,” Chris Mosier, a transgender athlete from the U.S., tweeted.
Quinn, the first openly transgender athlete from Canada to participate in the Olympics, was quoted by NBC News as saying, “[the guidelines] reflects what we know to be true — that athletes like me and my peers participate in sports without any inherent advantage, and that our humanity deserves to be respected.”