May 5, 2024; Nassau, Bahamas; World Athletics president Sebastian Coe watches during the World Athletics Relays at Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium. | Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
World Athletics, the world governing body for track and field, announced Wednesday that new regulations pertaining to eligibility for female athletes will begin September 1 and will be applied to the upcoming World Championships in Tokyo opening September 13.
All athletes seeking to compete in women’s track and field will undergo a one-time test for the SRY gene that determines the presence of a Y chromosome. That will be administered via a cheek swab test or blood test.
The testing regimens will be conducted and overseen by individual national governing bodies for the sport prior to the championships, and would be first administered as general policy since the International Olympic Committee ended the practice in 1999.
“The philosophy that we hold dear in World Athletics is the protection and the promotion of the integrity of women’s sport,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said in a statement concerning the new regulations. “We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female.”
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World Athletics first announced their intentions in March. Some analysts saw the testing initially as an additional safeguard to keep trans women out of the sport. World Athletics banned trans women from female competition in 2023.
It is still unsure how the testing would affect current regulations involving cisgender women with what are termed with “differences of sexual development.” A working group designed to consider a testing strategy stated that one of the goals would be to “Merge the DSD and Transgender Regulations, and, if the effect is to restrict opportunities for DSD athletes, adopt measures to address the reliance interest of those who are currently in the pipeline.”
What could complicate this planned system is the July 10 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights that South African Olympic, and World Champion Caster Semenya was denial her right to a fair trial when a legal challenge to the current DSD regulations was argued in the Swiss Supreme Court.
Semenya was a catalyst for much to current rules that call for surgical and medical interventions on the case of cisgender and intersex women who fall under the DSD restrictions.
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Unapologetically Black and trans. she/her. journalist built by Medill, socialist, athlete, 2024 WFA 2nd team All-American Contributor to Outsports, CEO/Executive Editor/Sportscaster For CharSports 1, and sports anchor for The Transpositions news magazine. See all articles by Karleigh Webb.
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