Competitive sports has in recent times struggled as to how to integrate transgender athletes.
There has been plenty of push-back from certain quarters on the inclusion of transgender athletes, especially in the women’s competitions. It is seen as unfair to certain athletes.
Although the number of transgender athletes in sports is very low, sports federations were still faced with negative reactions from certain athletes and officials.
One of the decisions taken earlier was to force transgender athletes to lower their testosterone levels to counterbalance some of the potential physical advantages of male biology.
To tackle the issue, earlier last month, several international federations decided to get together and come to a consensus on establishing rules that would allow transgender athletes to enter elite female competitions.
The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) hosted the meeting in Lausanne attended by representatives from the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the International Tennis Federation (ITF), World Rowing and the International Golf Federation (IGF).
With inputs from invited experts, the group came to several conclusions but agreed that more research was needed on the issue.
The meeting established two working groups, which would help interested international federations draft their own transgender eligibility rules and to establish medical and scientific network to promote research in the area of transgender athletes.
The IAAF Council, which met in Doha, approved eligibility rules that require the concentration of testosterone in an athlete to be less than five nanomoles per litre continuously for a period of at least 12 months prior to being declared eligible. The previous limit was 10 nanomoles.
However, plans by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to introduce stricter guidelines for transgender athletes before the Tokyo 2020 Games was delayed as their own scientists were unable to come on an agreement on the matter.
At the meeting in Lausanne, the group confirmed their commitment to fair and equal opportunity for female athletes in all competitions.
At the same time, they also agreed that the inclusion of transgender athletes within the female category would be promoted with meaningful eligibility standards, provided that it does not create intolerable unfairness.
It was also decided that all rules designed to accommodate transgender athletes should be sports-specific and designed by the relevant international federations.
"I didn’t care what people would say, or think. I didn’t want to do anything else besides transition and keep swimming." ??♀️@nattheswimmer #transathlete #itgetsbetter https://t.co/D40vwQJZwf
— It Gets Better (@ItGetsBetter) February 6, 2019
Another key consensus was to establish testosterone as the primary known driver of the performance gap between males and females and serum Testosterone to be regarded as the acceptable proxy to distinguish male from female athletes.
It was also decided that should a federation decide to use serum Testosterone for the said purpose, it should adopt a fixed threshold at or below 5nmol/L for eligibility for the female category.
The full report of the meeting can be found here.
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