Solved the regulation of hyperandrogenism -the regulations veto all those athletes whose testosterone level is above the common parameters-, Sir Sebastian Coe refuses to open more fronts.
And for that, he says:
-Transgender athletes have no place in female athletics.
The president of World Athletics, the entity that manages athletics, has been forceful this Thursday.
At a press conference in Monaco, he said:
We have taken decisive action to protect women in our sport. Our council has agreed to exclude transgender athletes who have transitioned from male to female, and who have been male at puberty, from rankings and competitions, effective March 31.
World Athletics had been thinking about the matter for three months.
The debate had been brewing in recent years, as weightlifter Laurel Hubbard was competing at the Tokyo 2020 Games in the women’s category and swimmer Lia Thomas was breaking through in American collegiate swimming, and it has been raging these days. months in World Athletics.
A commission made up of forty members of international federations, athletes, coaches, entities, transsexual organizations, experts from the United Nations and voices from the International Olympic and Paralympic Committee has been practically unanimous:
“Most experts have concluded that transgender athletes cannot compete in the female category,” Coe said. The decision is thorny because the sport tries to strike a balance between inclusion and the certainty that no one gets an unfair advantage.
According to Coe, most experts believe that transgender athletes who have transitioned from male to female have a clear advantage over female athletes.
(The International Swimming Federation is with you in the process: it has chosen to ban transgender women from elite competitions.)
Actually, World Athletics has been wrestling with similar issues for some time.
The Caster Semenya case has run in multiple forums and offices. The reader interested in athletics will know who Semenya (32) is. The South African middle-distance runner had astonished the planet in 2009, when she was proclaimed 800m world champion (she was barely 18 years old) and she seemed to open a new era in the discipline.
The debate had been opened later. He is very well exposed in a documentary: ‘Too fast to be a woman?’. After that first title in 2009, a commission of scientists had reviewed his case. Semenya’s femininity was in doubt: she had had to undress before all of them. From the analysis of her organism, it would be concluded that Semenya generated three times more testosterone than a woman.
A name was given to that debate: hyperandrogenism. And a limit.
To compete with the women (in events ranging from 400 to 1,500m), Semenya had to reduce her testosterone level to 10 nmol/l. She then withdrew the rate (in the meantime, Semenya won another two world titles and two Olympic golds), and then, already in 2019, the rate was reduced to 5nmol / l.
Semenya continues to compete today among women, but is limited by her condition. Either he takes medication to lower his testosterone level, or he has to run distances below 400 or above 1,500. In the Oregon World Cup last summer, she competed in the 5,000.
It has never adapted to that distance.
Other athletes like the sprinter Christine Mboma or the middle distance runner Francine Niyonsaba find themselves in a similar situation.
