The International Olympic Committee released its new framework for transgender and intersex athletes Tuesday. Hard as it is to believe, it is even worse than the old 2015 rules, which required testosterone level verification — despite the utter lack of science behind this. (The problem is the ineradicable changes wrought by male puberty: even after a year of hormone therapy, M2F transsexual athletes retained the vast majority of their strength advantage.)
The document itself is a pastiche of delusion, starting with its first section. Titled "Inclusion", all else follows from that idea, namely, that anyone who claims to be female should also get to compete with them in athletic events. The rest is filled with rationalizations for how this is to happen and why. Quoting Fair Play for Women's response (emboldening all mine):
UK sports governing bodies now have two different sets of guidance to consider, and on this point they agree. The new Sports Councils Equality Group guidance also concluded that testosterone suppression was pointless. But unlike the IOC, they kept sight of the implications: there is no fair way to include people who’ve been through male puberty in female competitive sport. Women will always be disadvantaged. That’s why a separate category for the female sex exists in most sports in the first place.
The IOC claims it has taken notice of the UK Sports Councils Equality Group’s output. It’s hard to see how. The IOC’s new guidance has abandoned the science and says there should be “no presumption of advantage”.
“No athlete should be excluded from competition on the exclusive ground of an unverified, alleged or perceived unfair competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status.”
What does this mean? It means that being transgender is no longer to be counted as having any relevance at all for sporting eligibility. No one is arguing that we don’t need separate female and male (or open) classes. Without them, females would barely get a look-in. Yet the IOC is saying being born male is not a factor.
“Transgender status” is what permits a male to compete as a female when there’s a massive advantage, ranging from 10% at the low end, in running and rowing, to 35% in weightlifting. This advantage is unaffected by gender identity. It would be laughable, were it not so disappointing, that the IOC has thrown out the fig-leaf of testosterone suppression and ended up with self-identification.
The gasoline that will keep this car moving is the fact that there is necessarily a limited supply of M2F transsexuals wanting to participate in women's sports. That does not make this any more fair to biological women.
