Lord Coe wants to protect women's sport

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Hope he is successful in his attempt to become President of the IOC.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/ioc-paris-imane-khelif-world-athletics-athens-b2646643.html

Double Olympic champion Coe, who is the president of World Athletics, admits he was “uncomfortable” watching the boxing tournament in Paris, where two athletes disqualified from the previous year’s World Championships for allegedly failing gender eligibility criteria – Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting – won gold medals. “It has to be a clear-cut policy and international federations must have some flexibility,” he said. “But it is incumbent on the IOC to create that landscape. It’s a very clear proposition to me – if you do not protect (the female) category, or you are in any way ambivalent about it for whatever reason, then it will not end well for women’s sport. “I come from a sport where that is absolutely sacrosanct.” Asked if the Olympic boxing tournament had made him wince, he replied: “I was uncomfortable.”

I am waiting to see if he is elected and if he is, interested to see just what he does.

Yes, actions speak louder than words.

I think he means it, wouldn't it be easier to get the job by keeping quiet?

But whether he can actually achieve any once in post is another matter.

I just had the bbc notification pop up

Fingers crossed.

He is definitely committed to protecting the female category....... and I'm sure he'd make all round great appointment. I wonder if he'll face much opposition - and who ultimately will make the decision?

he felt 'uncomfortable.' I was disgusted. It was the opposite of what competitive sporting events should showcase.

Th BBC putting 'women's sport' in inverted commas - as if it is a questionable concept. Coe in unequivocal....so that is excellent.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/articles/cq6l0qgp935o

Wasn't there some complication or shenanigans about his eligibility? What happened about that?

The current head of the IOC doesn't like Coe and by some newspaper accounts is putting blocks in his way.

I'm glad he's said it and he is making all the right noises but the IOC will make sure he doesn't get the head job now...cant have someone rocking the boat now, can we?! 🙄😑

He probably won’t be voted in precisely because he wants to protect women’s sports.

I'd vote for him. I watched him speaking earlier and cheered his clear position on women's sport.

Good for him - and pleasing to see he's speaking up despite the possible risk to him being appointed. Hopefully he can be nudged into recognising that this must apply to grassroots sport for women as well as elite?

Who else is in the running? I expected that at the end of the article. Even if he doesn't win, hopefully him raising it will mean all candidates will have to talk about it.

I'm not interested in Lord Coe's feelings. Lots of people felt uncomfortable about Maria Patino (who had XY chromosomes and CAIS and whose case and advocacy were the likely origin of the IAAF changing rules in 1990 and the IOC in 2003). I'd like to know how he is going to deal with the fact that you need a rulebook pretty much for every DSD and that every athlete deserves some privacy. I'd like to see someone definitively separate the issue of DSDs and of male trans people for good.

I’ve just watch him being interviewed on BBC 10 o’clock news. He said there needs to be an unambiguous message coming from the IOC to every sport, because if there is not, it will be the end of women’s sport and he is not prepared to let that happen.

There are seven people in the running for the job apparently.

No need to separate the two because the issue in both cases is maleness. No rulebook necessary.
No males in female sport - end of story. No exceptions. Not even if puberty-blocked or insensitive to androgens. No males. Sport passports as proof of sex.

I also saw this and he was quite clear. But I am concerned that this will go against him. I would imagine that for the rules to be the way they are at the moment mean they are captured?

Are you also advocating an end to drug testing then?

Absolutely no idea how you got to that from my post @TempestTost. If Coe is clearly focused on the integrity of the female category and not on whether he deels comfortable, that's great.

The only answer is to do what the IBA did and define female as those with XX chromosomes. No ambiguity.

PermanentTemporary

Would you mind expanding more on your previous post? I'm interested in what you see as the differences in how male athletes with DSDs and male athletes who claim a trans identity should be treated when it comes to women's sports.

OK. Maria Patino was (is) an athlete with CAIS, who therefore had XY chromosomes. She fell foul of gender testing in the late 80s and was banned. Her case led to the IAAF being the first sport to start the movement to abadon gender testing. She was on the 2003 committee that then moved to allowing male people who could prove low testosterone and surgery to compete in the female class. So to me the entire mess has been heavily mixed up with DSDs from the beginning.

Activists on the other side would say that her case proves that gender testing is oppressive and unworkable. I disagree but we have to engage with the detail of different DSDs to tease that apart. I'm not the only person on this board who would see CAIS as a DSD that means eligibility for the female category, given that by definition it excludes a male puberty. That's where I would draw the line. I'm not an expert though so I don't know how much of a spectrum there is between CAIS and PAIS.

I think the issue is that as yet, those male athletes with the group of differences of sex development that don’t process testosterone at all (CAIS for example) would need a specific policy for them.

At the moment there doesn’t seem to be enough evidence that they have advantage from being male, and it is possible that policy makers may decide they do not have those advantages. I don’t know how much of that is a lack of willingness to study that group closely vs genuine lack of evidence. Knowing that they are over represented at the Olympics, or have been in the past, would have raised some questions but maybe there are too many distractions at the moment.

Either way, there is a group of male people who don’t process testosterone at all that have XY chromosomes that would be excluded in a blanket XX only policy.