World Athletics is the first sport governing body to introduce mandatory swab testing to “protect” the female category, aiming to have a new “pre-clearance requirement” in place in time for the World Championships in Tokyo this September.
Speaking at a media conference at the conclusion of the 237th World Athletics Council Meeting in Nanjing, China, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said the new rules will keep up with the latest information available to maintain a fair and level playing field in the female category.
“We will doggedly protect the female category, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it,” Coe said. “It’s important to do it because it maintains everything that we’ve been talking about and, particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it.”
In 2023, World Athletics set a precedent when it banned transgender women from the female category. The revised rules are set to bar athletes with a difference of sex development (DSD) from the female category.
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In a statement, World Athletics said: “Preserving the integrity of competition in the female category is a fundamental principle of the sport of athletics. The majority of stakeholders consulted last month on the proposed new eligibility conditions for the female category agreed that allowing only biological female athletes to compete in the female category was essential to maintaining fairness.”
The council approved several recommendations from the Working Group on Gender Diverse Athletes, including; to formally affirm the design of and goals for the female category; to merge the DSD and Transgender Regulations and, if the effect is to restrict opportunities for DSD athletes, adopt measures to address the reliance interests of those who are currently in the pipeline; and to adopt a pre-clearance requirement for all athletes competing in the female category.
The council will also consider future initiatives, including to support elite gender-diverse XY athletes. For now, the new regulations will be drafted, and the pre-clearance SRY (a genetic surrogate for a Y chromosome) test provider, process and timeline will be agreed.
The one-time cheek/buccal swab or dry blood spot test will be non-invasive, Coe said. “The process is very straightforward frankly. Neither of these are invasive. They are necessary and they will be done to absolute medical standards.”
In 2019, World Athletics was required to go before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to defend its rulings against DSD athletes, including Caster Semenya.
“[The rulings have] been upheld, and they’ve again been upheld after appeal,” Coe noted. “We will doggedly protect the female category, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it. And we’re not just talking about it. I would never have set off down this path to protect the female category in sport if I’d been anything other than prepared to take the challenge head on.”
Last week, after the election of the new International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Kirsty Coventry – who won a landslide victory over her rivals, including Coe – said she hoped to set up a taskforce to further examine the issue of protecting women’s sport.
US president Donald Trump also signed a controversial executive order last month aimed at banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. Since then, Trump’s administration has reflected this by denying $175 million (€161 million) in grants to the University of Pennsylvania, where the renowned transgender swimmer Lia Thomas was a member.
The executive order grants federal agencies the freedom to withhold funding if an entity fails to comply with the interpretation of Title IX that prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational institutions, including the reinterpreted term “sex” as the gender assigned at birth.
