World Athletics Consultations Underway to Amend Female Eligibility Guidelines

World Athletics has launched a consultation process to update the current Eligibility Regulations for the Female Category (Athletes with Differences of Sex Development) (‘the DSD Regulations’) and the Eligibility Regulations for Transgender Athletes (‘the TG Regulations’). These regulations were introduced in 2023 based on the science available at the time with the goal of maintaining a level playing field in the Female Category. A working group on gender-diverse athletes was also established to keep abreast of developments in law, science, sports and society to preserve the integrity of competition for female athletes.

Through the working group, World Athletics majorly observed that testosterone suppression in 46XY individuals can only ever partly mitigate the overall male advantage. Further, the exclusive focus on male puberty was wrong. New evidence establishes that athletic disadvantages associated with female body structure and physiology contribute to the performance gap. Also, there has been no new countervailing evidence suggesting that transgender women and androgen-sensitive XY DSD athletes are biologically different. Moreover, testosterone suppression as a condition for eligibility in the Female Category has faced massive opposition, with some human rights experts citing concerns about female athletes’ rights.

Based on the above-cited observation, the following recommendations were made:

• Formally affirm the design of and goals for the Female Category as a space where XX athletes can compete only against each other. Also ensuring equality and fairness for female athletes, growing their commercial value and using the category as a vehicle for female empowerment.
• Revise the eligibility rules and regulations for its Female Category, restricting it to athletes whose biological sex is female. Male athletes should be barred unless they are completely insensitive to androgens.
• All androgen-sensitive XY athletes must be treated alike. Merging the DSD and Transgender Regulations with measures to address any reasonable reliance interests DSD athletes may have as a result of new restrictions.
• Adopt a pre-clearance test requirement at the elite level. The test will be for the SRY gene and, if required, testosterone levels. It will be either a cheek swab with any necessary follow-up or dry blood spot analysis.
• Consider initiatives to support all elite athletes, including gender-diverse athletes, and ensure that all stakeholders and the public understand World Athletics’ eligibility rules.

If approved, it would be a giant blow to transgender inclusion in women’s sports. Last month the US National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) changed its policy, allowing only those assigned female at birth to compete in women’s sports. Gender inclusiveness in sports has been a particularly controversial issue over the last decade, with the Olympics in the past year witnessing major issues after allowing the participation of Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, who had been disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for failing gender eligibility tests.