Athletes will be eligible to compete in the female category for world-ranking competitions such as the world championships only if they clear a one-time gene test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The test for the SRY gene, which needs to be taken only once and helps in determining biological sex, can be conducted via a cheek swab or blood test. World Athletics\u2019 testing protocol will be overseen by member federations and the new regulations come into effect on 1 September, in time for that month\u2019s world championships in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling,\u201d the World Athletics president,\u00a0Sebastian Coe, said. \u201cThe test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case. We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was always very clear to me and the World\u00a0Athletics\u00a0Council that gender cannot trump biology. We particularly want to thank our member federations for their support and commitment in the implementation of these new regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Athletics has spent years debating eligibility criteria to compete in women\u2019s events, amid questions over biological advantages for transgender athletes and those with differences of sex development (DSD). World Athletics currently bans transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in women\u2019s events, while it requires female DSD athletes whose bodies produce high testosterone levels to lower them in order to be eligible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, a working group found that those rules were not tight enough, with a pre-clearance test for the SRY gene being\u00a0one of several recommendations\u00a0the group made for revised rules. The SRY gene reveals the presence of the Y chromosome, which is an indicator of biological sex. The test was also\u00a0approved by World Boxing in May\u00a0when they introduced mandatory sex testing for all boxers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This month, the European Court upheld a 2023 ruling that double 800m Olympic champion Caster Semenya\u2019s appeal to a Swiss Federal Tribunal against regulations that barred her from competing\u00a0had not been properly heard. Semenya was appealing against World Athletics regulations that female athletes with DSDs medically reduce their testosterone levels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Athletes will be eligible to compete in the female category for world-ranking competitions such as the world championships only if they clear a one-time gene test. The test for the SRY gene, which needs to be taken only once and helps in determining biological sex, can be conducted via a cheek swab or blood test. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3295],"tags":[9306,10762,5810,7960,3107,10507,9505,12210,11857,11385,10222,3805,11856,7584,9713,3108,1705,5511,5320,36,11771,594],"class_list":["post-45753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-sport","tag-appeal","tag-athletics","tag-boxing","tag-case","tag-caster-semenya","tag-court","tag-european","tag-female","tag-gene-test","tag-olympic","tag-olympic-champion","tag-president","tag-sebastian-cole","tag-sex","tag-swiss","tag-testosterone","tag-tokyo","tag-transgender","tag-women","tag-world","tag-world-athletics","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45755,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45753\/revisions\/45755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}