https://x.com/runthinkwrite/status/1884213728305893617
Jon Pike:
'Some comments on Kirsty Coventry's new statement which I link to below.
First, this is good news. Everything that any candidate says now, in the run up to the conclave in March, will be directed at winning votes. This statement is a play for votes. These comments show that Coventry thinks there are votes to be won in protecting female sport. She knows far more about the constituency that is voting than me, so this is a very welcome development. (I've no idea whether this appeal to a 'protect women's sport' bloc will work, I'm just very pleased that there is such a bloc).
Second, the attempt to minimise blame for the Paris debacle is implausible. "we couldn't see it coming" is not credible. In order to understand this, you need to realise that the issue of athletes with DSDs is a much bigger issue in elite sport than athletes who are trans. (It's the other way around at sub-elite levels) It is pretty easy to rule out trans-identified men from female competition at the stroke of a pen. This will surely happen: Lauren Hubbard is very likely to be the last trans-identified man competing in the woman's category at the Olympics.
And the opposition to Hubbard that really ocunted was the opposition of female athletes. That #nothankyou form Sarah Robles was both wonderful and influential. ('NB' athletes and trans-identified females will, of course, continue in the female category, and there is no issue).
But there are quite a lot of 46XY DSD athletes in elite sport. Clear cases in football and boxing. Their prominence is due to their competitive male advantage, and this leads to very significant over-representation in female sport. Talk to people involved in sports governance at a high level, and, if they are being honest, they will tell you that this is a really big issue.
By the way, everyone who writes about the issue of 'intersex athletes' or even 'athletes with DSDs' is showing that they don't fully understand the debate. If, as I think, the 'cut' is between some athletes with DSDs (who have male advantage) and other athletes with DSDs (who don't have male advantage) then the recognition that DSDs are heterogeneous is necessary. People with DSDs are sexed. Some people with DSDs are female and have no male advantage.
Others are male and have male advantage. #sexmatters
. So I'm sure they saw this coming. If they didn't see it in the specific form of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, then they should have done. Third, this attempt to shift blame makes Coventry a less credible candidate on this than Coe. If I was a potentate on the IOC committee, I'd still vote for Coe. Fourth, I'd like to see concrete commitments form these candidates. One would be: we will ditch the Framework Document and return to the principles of fair sport. I have criticized the framework document at length: it's got to go, and no progress can be made until it does. So, be explicit: scrap that document. Fifth, there has to be a shift of personnel in Lausanne. I won't be too specific, but there has to be a clear out, of staff and advisors.
If you are serious about the integrity of female sport, you need a major cultural and institutional shift away from the lobbies and people who have been advising you and misleading you into this mess. That's it, but I'll post a link to my critique of the IOC's 'framework' document in the next post. And the multi-authored critique below that. I'm confident that many of the authors of the multi-authored critique would be happy to help the new president of the IOC to sort this out. Me included. '