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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Transgender women to be banned from all female Olympic events

383 replies

Misla · 10/11/2025 11:54

About time!!

IOC likely to announce new policy early in new year after findings of a scientific review about the permanent physical advantages of being born male

The International Olympic Committee is set to announce a ban on transgender women in female competition early next year after a science-based review of evidence about permanent physical advantages of being born male.

The IOC’s guidance to Olympic sports has until now been that transgender women can compete with reduced testosterone levels but leaves it up to individual sports to decide. That is now set to change under its new president, Kirsty Coventry, who has promised to protect the female category.

The committee’s medical and scientific director, Dr Jane Thornton, last week presented to IOC members at a meeting in Lausanne the initial findings of a science-based review into the issues of transgender athletes and athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD) competing in female sport.

Free-to-read link: https://archive.is/kGpyI

Transgender women to be banned from all female Olympic events

Transgender women to be banned from all female Olympic events

IOC likely to announce new policy early in new year after findings of a scientific review about the permanent physical advantages of being born male

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/olympics/article/olympic-ioc-transgender-athlete-ban-womens-sports-zhlpfll3b

OP posts:
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Lovelyview · 10/11/2025 18:27

plantcomplex · 10/11/2025 17:48

How on earth can she possibly be considered fit to practice medicine?

I think her main job now is generating income from engagement farming with ridiculous posts on Twitter.

Needspaceforlego · 10/11/2025 18:33

Hicupping · 10/11/2025 13:03

But no one cares about transmen. They never do.

What about them. If they are capable of competing with actual males good for them, somebody has to be last I suppose.

If they are doped and not able to compete with females tough.

maltravers · 10/11/2025 18:47

SilenceInside · 10/11/2025 11:55

Bloody ridiculous that they needed a scientific review to figure this out....

You would think they could just compare male and female times/records over the past x decades. Job done.

Alucard55 · 10/11/2025 18:59

HermioneWeasley · 10/11/2025 12:02

Men, men are banned from competing in women’s sports. As they should be

they are still free to compete against the other men if they’re good enough

I was shouting this at Sky News earlier. My husband even joined in "Men! Men!".

ErrolTheDragon · 10/11/2025 19:06

Arran2024 · 10/11/2025 17:31

Wibble wibble … Cherry on the cake of a good news story 😂

ErrolTheDragon · 10/11/2025 19:08

applegingermint · 10/11/2025 17:44

@ThatCyanCat it was even worse than this. Laurel Hubbard, aged mid forties and mediocre as a male weightlifter in domestic competition, stole the place of 18 year old Roviel Detenamo from the low income Pacific island of Nauru. It would have been her first Olympics.

She didn’t just deny a place to a woman on the relatively large and wealthy Kiwi team, she stole a place from a country who send 1-2 athletes at best per Games, and prevented Roviel from making her Olympic debut.

He.
he stole that place.

ErrolTheDragon · 10/11/2025 19:12

HildegardP · 10/11/2025 17:38

There's a trans-identified female boxer, Hergie Bacyadan, who doesn't take testosterone & who competed in the female category at the 2024 Olympics. Not banned then, wouldn't be banned under new proposals.

Yes - transmen have a choice. Transwomen too - Jenner won the gold decathlon medal honestly (an event no woman is allowed to do) , had that sporting career and then ‘transitioned’.
not too unlike many women athletes having to make huge choices around parenthood which men aren’t affected by.

mackerella · 10/11/2025 19:50

miniaturepixieonacid · 10/11/2025 16:06

I don't think they would - or not all of them anyway? If they're on testosterone then wouldn't they also have too much added advantage to take part? Drug tests are very strict.

Nonbinary female athletes could and probably would compete in women's events. But I don't think a lot of transmen could so 'trans athletes' seems fair enough for a headline descriptor to me. Going into detail can be done in the body of an article.

Good news, anyway.

Edited

I agree that they would have to make sure they didn't exceed testosterone limits. But not all trans people take cross-sex hormones - in fact, just by suggesting that someone can't be trans unless they're on T, you're probably committing literal violence, you genocidal transphobe, you!

Keely Hodgkinson could decide tomorrow that she's a man, without making any further changes to her life, but I still think she should be allowed to compete in the 800m at the next Olympics!

HildegardP · 10/11/2025 19:54

Arran2024 · 10/11/2025 17:31

Splendid. I hope it has a delterious effect on her blood pressure.

nolongersurprised · 10/11/2025 20:09

theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw · 10/11/2025 13:30

The new policy is also likely to cover DSD (differences of sex development) athletes — those who were raised as girls from birth but have male chromosomes and male levels of testosterone.

It doesn't say whether the press were officially briefed to this effect, but they then go on to discuss Khelif.

I'll be surprised if they ban CAIS.

Presumably the same policy as with world athletics. So - XY AND androgen sensitive. The genetic test is just the screening test. CAIS still fine to compete, 5alpha-reductase def and PAIS not

Needspaceforlego · 10/11/2025 20:09

NoBinturongsHereMate · 10/11/2025 13:07

Re medal stripping: won't happen. Unlike doping, previous competitors were within the rules at the time.

Unfortunately you are probably right

carpedaim · 10/11/2025 20:11

mackerella · 10/11/2025 19:50

I agree that they would have to make sure they didn't exceed testosterone limits. But not all trans people take cross-sex hormones - in fact, just by suggesting that someone can't be trans unless they're on T, you're probably committing literal violence, you genocidal transphobe, you!

Keely Hodgkinson could decide tomorrow that she's a man, without making any further changes to her life, but I still think she should be allowed to compete in the 800m at the next Olympics!

Athletes aren't allowed to take testosterone - it's not just about staying within the limit.

nolongersurprised · 10/11/2025 20:56

theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw · 10/11/2025 17:18

I think they were just about to drop the SRY test and were saying 'look, we don't need it, we don't get any male interlopers anyway'. Because they thought male=penis. And a 'female' with SRY might end up being unfairly excluded. Yes I know it makes no sense.

ETA genital inspections were still a possibility and Semenya describes being subjected to them.

Edited

If you “fail” the genetic test, the next round of assessment is to determine whether you are androgen sensitive. Which will include a physical exam as well as enzyme assays, scans etc.

Given that when you’re drug tested at elite level the tester actually has to see the urine leave your urethra, I find “genital inspections”, when used by Caster and co to be unnecessary emotionally manipulative. There’s no privacy in high-level sport.

Datun · 10/11/2025 21:30

"Science based review"

Such disgraceful wankery.

Still. Tanker well and truly turned.

Full steam ahead.

Delphin · 10/11/2025 21:31

@HildegardP : "It all goes back to the 80s & a Spanish male athlete with a DSD, Maria Patiño, who claimed never to have known his condition until a sex test in 1986 (itself unlikely)."

Wasn't Maria Patiño a CAIS case? As she is still living as a woman, I think it's highly likely. Also, in earlier years knowledge about these conditions wasnt widespread, and being born around 1960 I can believe that she had no idea until her first genetic test. Would a doctor in 1975 have been able to diagnose a CAIS? Or even just a general DSD in a patient with CAIS?

peanutbuttertoasty · 10/11/2025 21:33

Good. Medals back now.

HildegardP · 10/11/2025 21:42

Delphin · 10/11/2025 21:31

@HildegardP : "It all goes back to the 80s & a Spanish male athlete with a DSD, Maria Patiño, who claimed never to have known his condition until a sex test in 1986 (itself unlikely)."

Wasn't Maria Patiño a CAIS case? As she is still living as a woman, I think it's highly likely. Also, in earlier years knowledge about these conditions wasnt widespread, and being born around 1960 I can believe that she had no idea until her first genetic test. Would a doctor in 1975 have been able to diagnose a CAIS? Or even just a general DSD in a patient with CAIS?

You don't think an amenorrheic ~26 year old might have had medical tests to understand the cause of that condition prior to a Barr body test for elite sports?
I don't really find that credible.

BundleBoogie · 10/11/2025 21:52

MyObservations · 10/11/2025 14:36

In part because of the fake information that was being out around. The simple fact is that if someone has gender reassignment before puberty, they take on the strengths and weaknesses of their new gender. If they have gender reassignment after puberty, they take with them the strengths and weaknesses of their former gender.

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘gender reassignment’ but sports are played with our bodies that are one of two sexes. Make it female. ‘Gender’ or its ’reassignment‘ is not relevant.

Stopping puberty with long term use of powerful drugs and then creating a serious hormone imbalance by giving cross sex hormones does not create healthy bodies that will be successful in elite sport.

It is utterly unethical to incentivise parents or coaches harming children in this way and allow them to compete in sports for the opposite sex. Female bodies will still be unable to compete successfully against males.

Delphin · 10/11/2025 21:56

I have no knowledge how far advanced medicine was in 1960s/70s/80s. Do you? I might go reading on it tomorrow (past bedtime here). I only remember reading an article ages ago about her that had a few points, that with my current knowledge point towards CAIS.

MyObservations · 10/11/2025 22:03

BundleBoogie · 10/11/2025 21:52

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘gender reassignment’ but sports are played with our bodies that are one of two sexes. Make it female. ‘Gender’ or its ’reassignment‘ is not relevant.

Stopping puberty with long term use of powerful drugs and then creating a serious hormone imbalance by giving cross sex hormones does not create healthy bodies that will be successful in elite sport.

It is utterly unethical to incentivise parents or coaches harming children in this way and allow them to compete in sports for the opposite sex. Female bodies will still be unable to compete successfully against males.

I'm just giving you the facts. BTW, gender reassignment is sex change surgery.

WandaSiri · 10/11/2025 22:03

HildegardP · 10/11/2025 17:31

It was at least in part as the result of scientific papers (shoddy ones) that we got into this mess. It all goes back to the 80s & a Spanish male athlete with a DSD, Maria Patiño, who claimed never to have known his condition until a sex test in 1986 (itself unlikely). He was subsequently stripped of his female category medals & titles & initially banned from the '88 Olympics.
His reported distress & successful legal challenges galvanised a lot of people who should have known better to find excuses & methods to accommodate such males in the female category. They campaigned for a decade, wrote flabby papers & the eventual result was the IOC framework document on "fairness [sic] inclusion and non-discrimination [sic]" that meant neither DSD males nor trans males could be excluded from the female category.

Just shows how seriously (not) they took the women's category, doesn't it? Women's events are not under-5s sports day, athletes don't have to be included because they are crying.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 10/11/2025 22:04

BundleBoogie · 10/11/2025 21:52

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘gender reassignment’ but sports are played with our bodies that are one of two sexes. Make it female. ‘Gender’ or its ’reassignment‘ is not relevant.

Stopping puberty with long term use of powerful drugs and then creating a serious hormone imbalance by giving cross sex hormones does not create healthy bodies that will be successful in elite sport.

It is utterly unethical to incentivise parents or coaches harming children in this way and allow them to compete in sports for the opposite sex. Female bodies will still be unable to compete successfully against males.

Well said. And no child with their body harmed and mutilated following puberty blockers etc will ever manage to compete in elite sport. They'll be a medical patient for life - not a competitive sports person.

WandaSiri · 10/11/2025 22:10

There are puberty-blocked or at least suspected puberty-blocked boys having very successful sporting careers in high school and collegiate sports in the US. Volleyball, basketball and track and field. They're not all Jazz Jenningses.
So even more important not to incentivise puberty blocking. Just no males in female sport, end of.

idontknowhowtodreamyourdreams · 10/11/2025 22:11

What the fuck took them so long?

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