World Athletics is poised to introduce tougher rules for transgender and difference of sex development (DSD) athletes, including a cheek swab test for all elite athletes who want to compete in the female category.
The recommendations from the World Athletics council are based on recent scientific research, which it says shows the male advantage exists even before puberty.
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Under World Athletics’ existing rules, introduced in March last year, anyone who has undergone male puberty is barred from the female category – after research reported that transgender women retained an advantage in strength, endurance, power and lung capacity, even after taking medication to suppress their testosterone.
However, the governing body of track and field now wants to further toughen its policy because of “new evidence which clarifies there is already an athletically significant performance gap before the onset of puberty”.
“The childhood or pre-pubertal performance gap in the sport of athletics specifically is 3 to 5% in running events, and higher in throwing and jumping events,” it adds. “New evidence establishes that athletic disadvantages associated with female body structure and physiology contribute to the performance gap.”
The World Athletics’ president, Sebastian Coe, said the move was designed to “ensure that our guidelines keep up with the latest information available to maintain a fair and level-playing field in the female category”.
“Preserving the integrity of competition in the female category is a fundamental principle of the sport of athletics and we look forward to this collaborative consultation process with our key stakeholders in this area,” he added.
Most significantly, World Athletics wants to adopt what it calls a “pre-clearance requirement for all elite athletes competing in the female category” – which, in essence, is a one-time non-invasive cheek swab test.
“The required test will be for the SRY gene and, if required, testosterone levels, either via cheek swab with any necessary follow-up or via dry blood spot analysis,” World Athletics says in its consultation document.
“In this context, the SRY gene, which is almost always on the Y chromosome, is used as a highly accurate proxy for biological sex but makes room for an additional diagnostic process at the athlete’s discretion.”
World Athletics says the cheek-test proposal was recommended by the special rapporteur’s report on female eligibility to the UN general assembly in October 2024 and is supported by many athletes. “Available surveys of both the general population and elite female athletes show strong opposition, either steady or growing, to XY athletes competing in the female category.”
As thing stands, DSD athletes are allowed to compete in the female category, providing they lower their testosterone levels to 2.5 n/mol. Those athletes, including Caster Semenya, have undergone male puberty but were reported as female at birth.
World Athletics, however, now proposes that there should be the same rules for DSD and transgender athletes as “new evidence has also clarified that testosterone suppression in 46XY DSD and 46XY transgender individuals can only ever partly mitigate the overall male advantage in the sport of athletics”.
The recommendations have been sent out to stakeholders for consultation but are expected to be implemented later this year.
