World Athletics bans transgender women from female sporting events — Sport — The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News

The World Athletics Council (WAC), the governing body for sporting events worldwide, yesterday voted to ban transgender women from elite female competitions if they have passed male puberty. The governing body said the decision was made to “protect the future of the female category”.

Following the ruling, which goes into effect on March 31, World Athletics President Seb Coe accepted the decision would be controversial but said his sport is governed by the “overriding principle” of fairness as well as the science surrounding it physical fitness performance and male advantage. “We believe the integrity of the female category in athletics is of paramount importance.”

However, Coe also stressed that he would set up a working group that would consult with transgender athletes and review any new research. “We’re not saying no forever,” he said.

The sport has increasingly wrestled with the thorny issue of transgender participation in recent years, particularly when New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard qualified for the Tokyo Olympics after transitioning in her 30s.

Since Tokyo, most sports have opted to let trans women compete if they lower their testosterone levels to 5 nanomoles per liter for 12 months. New scientific evidence showing that transgender women retain an advantage in strength, endurance, power and lung capacity even after testosterone suppression had led World Athletics to propose a lower testosterone limit for at least 24 months in January.

Coe said there was “little support” for such a policy, with athletes and federations making it clear they wanted to prioritize the fairness of women’s sport over inclusion.

Athletics is the latest sport to exclude transgender women from women’s sport, following World Rugby three years ago and World Swimming and Rugby Football League last year. Swimming’s decision came shortly after Lia Thomas, who had been an intermediate collegiate swimmer as a male competitor in the United States, won a 2022 NCAA women’s national collegiate title.

World Athletics’ decision is likely to be opposed by LGBTQ+ groups, who last month pushed for the sport to be as inclusive as possible.

The move was welcomed by the Fair Play For Women campaign group. “It is the right thing for women and girls, in accordance with all scientific knowledge and common sense,” it said. “We now expect national federations to follow World Athletics’ lead, restore the talent path for girls and young women, and restore fair sports for women of all ages.”

In another important decision, the Athletics Federation also announced that all athletes with differential sex development (DSD) would be banned from international competitions unless they reduced their testosterone levels to 2.5 to 2.5 nanomoles per liter for at least six months .

Previously, athletes with DSD, including former women’s Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya and Christine Mboma, the silver medalist in the 200-meter dash at the Tokyo Games, have been allowed to compete without medication except in events of 400m to a mile.

In 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that 46 XY 5-ARD individuals with differential sex development like Semenya “enjoy a significant athletic advantage over 46 XX competitors without such a DSD” due to biology.

Coe said athletes using DSD would now need to keep their testosterone levels down for at least six months, meaning they will miss this summer’s World Championships in Budapest.

In a related development, Coe said that because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian athletes would remain banned from athletics for the foreseeable future, although the International Olympic Committee is exploring a way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete neutrally as independent athletes.