IOC faces pressure as over 80 rights groups oppose reported gender‑testing proposal for female athletes

GENEVA, March 18 — More than 80 human rights and sport advocacy groups have called on the International Olympic Committee to abandon reported plans to introduce universal genetic sex testing for female athletes and impose a blanket ban on transgender and intersex competitors.

A joint statement released yesterday by the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA), ILGA World, Humans of Sport and dozens of other groups warned that the measures that will reportedly be recommended by the IOC’s Protection of the Female Category Working Group would set back gender equity in sport.

“Multiple sources have said the group has advised the IOC to require all women and girl athletes to undergo genetic sex verification and to bar transgender and intersex athletes from competing in women’s events. The IOC has not publicly confirmed the recommendations,” the statement said.

The IOC said in a statement to Reuters today that no decisions have been made.

“The protection of the female category working group is continuing its discussions on this topic and no decisions have been taken yet,” the IOC spokesperson said. “Further information will be provided in due course.”

The IOC discontinued universal sex testing after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

It has long declined to apply any universal rule on transgender participation in the Olympics and in 2021 instructed international federations to come up with their own guidelines.

Several major federations, including athletics, swimming and rugby union, have since barred athletes ⁠who have gone through male puberty from competing in the women’s ⁠class.

The SRA’s executive director Andrea Florence said sex testing and a blanket ban policy would ⁠be a “catastrophic erosion of women’s rights and ⁠safety”.

“Gender policing and exclusion harms ⁠all women and girls, and undermines the very dignity and fairness the IOC claims to uphold,” she added.

Jon Pike, an English academic in the field of the philosophy of sport and advocate for the protection of the female category, said the letter was “laughable, desperate, and ⁠silly”.

“(The working group) won’t propose a ban at all, it proposes to exclude males from the female category,” Pike wrote on social media platform X.

“This (letter) was predictable, and is, in a way, encouraging. Nothing is fixed, but I’m optimistic because of the pessimism of this group.”

International bodies, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women and the World Medical Association, have condemned sex testing and related interventions as discriminatory and harmful.

It “violates women’s and girls’ privacy”, and exposes child athletes to safeguarding risks, said Payoshni Mitra, ⁠executive director of Humans of Sport.

Advocates also argued that banning transgender and intersex athletes ignores barriers those athletes face, including harassment, restricted access to sport and other structural disadvantages.

“Sport should be a place of belonging,” said ILGA World’s ⁠Executive Director Julia Ehrt.

The groups said the reported proposals contradict the IOC’s own Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination, the guidance document ⁠which put the onus ⁠on federations to fix their own rules.

“I should hope that the proposals contradict the 2021 Framework document, because that is one of the most confused — to put it kindly — policy statements I’ve ever read,” added Professor Pike.

“It claimed, you may recall, that there was ‘no presumed advantage’ of males over females (in sport).”

World Athletics is among sporting organisations which have already adopted gender testing, introducing a one-off SRY gene test obtained by a cheek swab for all female athletes ahead of last year’s World Championships in Tokyo. — Reuters