International Olympic Committee announcement today! Will it be regarding female sports?

[Helleofabore]

The IOC is making an announcement today. Here is the Youtube link for the live stream.

15.15 UK time. Let's hope it is the speculated announcement that they have decided to exclude any male person who has undergone androgenisation at puberty.

https://t.co/rm06rZDB0u

Bye bye Banda.

I do wish there was a laugh emoji on mumsnet! Is the tide actually turning now?

Some fool on reddit seeks to think that a lot of women are going to find out they are intersex.

not so, a tiny, vanishingly small, number may find out they have a dsd. No one will find out they are intersex. Not one.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/cdj7dgvlj0no
Olympic women's sport limited to biological females

BBC Headline.

o The Male performance advantage can be greater than 100 per cent in events that involve explosive power, e.g. in collision, lifting and punching sports.

This was so visible, it was so dangerous and yet so many people ignored it - so many magazines/media sites pretending it was not obvious.

Fantastic news - am just reading Sharon Davies's Unfair play - excellent book that explores how male-centred Olympic decision making is. I hope Sharon is celebrating today that her work and the work of many others has paid off.

Thank you to Sharon and all those individuals involved in this work.

Finally!

A great day for women's sports.

The media however...restricting men, and protecting women. And guess who the headline is spun towards, because obvs the focus of women's sports...... are the men!

Ffs.

I do not care if I sound like a middle aged tory voter but thankfully at last common sense has prevailed

Quite re the obvious danger. I wonder how Angela Carini feels.

Wonderful news that the IOC is preserving the female sporting category.

Written by Sean Ingle rather than Jonathan Liew by any chance?

Haha, you would be correct.

Thanks @Helleofabore and PPs for putting all the information and links together! It’s very good news and such a step forward from the ridiculous stance previously taken

That's a bit different in that the person was always breaking the rules but just went undetected, whereas eg Semenya, Khalif et al were complying with the rules in place at the time. The better comparison to doping is with someone who was taking a substance that wasn't banned previously but now is. If it was legal until 31st December 2025, an athlete whose sample on that date showed it won't be disqualified but an athlete whose sample shows it now will be, even if the levels are identical and nothing else has changed.

It's a damn shame, but I do think we're about to see a number of huffy/bullshitting retirements.

let’s see Khelif take on a male in their next boxing match.

It's more than a slight advantage, but that if the category is for females, then it is for females, not for females + males who suffer from a condition which makes their male advantage much smaller than that of other males. This is not about measuring the advantage of any particular cohort of males and deciding that as it's only small, it's acceptable. Superior height and no periods is a group advantage which they have because they are male. It's not natural variation within a sex category.
The existence of male athletic performance advantage is the reason for the protected category, but being female should be the eligibility criterion. Therefore all males should be excluded.

Plus of course this only goes one way. Women with DSDs which have given them an externally male phenotype do not carry female advantage into men's sport.

"Plus the restriction of its application to elite competition undermines the whole policy."

I agree, but the IOC can only put in place rules for the Olympic games, they don't get to tell other sports federations what they can and cannot do.

Having said that, the World Athletics rules (from last year) are basically the same - although there is no reference to CAIS.

World Aquatics (swimming & diving) and the International Weightlifting Federation both have a rule about not having gone through male puberty.

However, anyone competing at that level who wishes to aim for the Olympics will, of necessity, have to do the one-time cheek swab or saliva test.

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But, as you say, it is the lower level competitions where things may be different. But it may not be all bad.

Here in the UK, British Weightlifting changed its rules in July of last year, just after FWS, to limit participation in the female category solely to biological women (they had previously had a testosterone limit rule):

"To comply with the Equality Act 2010, BWL will only offer a female category which only includes women and girls whose biological sex is female. BWL will not permit the participation of males who identify as female.

"Furthermore, no male has the right in law to self-identify into a female changing room, toilet, or other single-sex space in accordance with the Equality Act 2010."

England Athletics also has a similar rule and organisations like the National Athletics League also follow this position.

But this doesn't apply to eg schools events (unless at a national level) or individual club events.

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In the USA, President Trump has had a big effect. About a year ago he made an Executive Order that said all sports bodies that receive any federal money should have a female category based solely on biological sex.

From there, the US Olympic Committee told the different US sporting federations that they also had to comply and these federations are moving at different speeds towards this. So, some still have outdated rules but they are all moving in the same direction.

But again, very small or schools events may not be covered by this.

the policy was unanimously agreed. Good

Bloody brilliant news. thanks @Helleofabore
As the Mum of a trans identified 21-year-old with autism and most likely body dissociation as well as multiple other comorbidities, announcements like this are music to my ears. Hopefully, the world is finally waking up.
Please everyone, talk to your friends, doctors, teachers et cetera about this because what has really shocked me is how little people think of the huge ramifications of hormones and surgery on autistic young people - who are arguably now the ones most likely to still be caught up in this mess.

I suppose we are now on the very edge of definition of Female and Male.

How I understand it, it makes sense for practical purposes to go beyond XX and XY to SRY gen.

The definition for elite sports doesn't have to apply everywhere but for elite sports it must be drawn very narrowly.

Thanks @Helleofabore - these are good omens. This will impact other downstream sports groups.

Ridiculous that men have been allowed in women’s sports and spaces. Good that this will change.

Shame on all those who enabled men to take advantage of women and take their places on podiums. The rank misogyny!

Consulted with athletes 1100 responses from athletes, one on one discussions with impacted athletes. They seem to have done an in-depth consultation on this one.

So unless Lin Yu Ting has CAIS, this might make the shenanigans of the other day become irrelevant. At least as far as the Olympics is concerned.

Yes. Unless the IOC might accept World Boxing decision.... I am going to wait and see on that one.

PROTECT the female category - yes! About time.