World Athletics President Sebastian Coe has welcomed swimming’s decision to ban transgender women from elite women’s competition, saying it was “in the best interest of its sport” – and hinted that athletics could soon follow suit.
Lord Coe was in Budapest on Sunday when swimming’s governing body, Fina, voted to ban trans athletes who have experienced any part of male puberty from women’s events. Within 24 hours, he announced that the World Athletics Council would also be reviewing its policies for transgender and DSD (gender development differences) athletes by the end of the year.
“My responsibility is to protect the integrity of women’s sport. We take this very seriously and if it means we need to make adjustments to the protocols in the future, we will,” Coe said. “And I’ve always made it clear that if we’re ever cornered enough to make a judgment about fairness or inclusion, I’ll always side with fairness.”
Under World Athletics rules, transgender women can compete in the female category provided they maintain their testosterone levels below 5 nmol/L for 12 months. That rule was also followed by Fina until Sunday, when it changed its regulations after scientific evidence showed trans women retain an edge even after a reduction in testosterone.
When asked what he thought of Fina’s new policies, Coe was clear. “We see an international federation asserting its primacy in setting rules, regulations and policies that are in the best interests of its sport,” he said. “That’s how it should be. We have always believed and consistently emphasized that biology takes precedence over gender and we will continue to review our regulations accordingly.”
There are currently no elite-level trans athletes, although CeCé Telfer became the first openly trans person to win an NCAA women’s 400m hurdles title in 2019.
Any tightening of the rules will also affect DSD athletes such as two-time Olympic and three-time 800m world champion Caster Semenya, Tokyo 2020 200m silver medalist Christine Mboma and Francine Niyonsaba, who most recently won the Diamond League 5,000m final women won year.
DSD athletes – who have male testicles but don’t produce enough of the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is crucial for the formation of male external genitalia – have proven to be a highly contentious area for athletics.
In 2019, World Athletics went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to bar DSD athletes from running internationally in events between 400m and a mile unless they are taking medication to lower their testosterone levels. But you can also start in other events. Cas ruled that 46 XY-DSD athletes “enjoy a significant athletic advantage…over 46 XX athletes without such a DSD” because of biology.
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Athletes like Semenya, who grew up as women from a young age and want to compete as women, have garnered a lot of sympathy, and any change to World Athletics’ DSD policy would reignite the controversy.
Asked if the board would consider a policy similar to Fina’s, Coe said: “We have always said our regulations in this area are a living document specific to our sport and we will follow the science.
“We continue to study and research and contribute to the growing body of evidence that testosterone is a key factor in performance and have scheduled a discussion of our DSD and transgender policies with our council later this year.”