A long standing issue in the Olympics, this debate has been going on, and evolved, since the 1988 Seoul Olympics:
āAs a tennis pro who has competed on the regional level, I have never had to subject myself to this Orwellian inspection, nor contemplate the trauma of being told I am not female. But this is precisely what has happened to other women athletes, despite the fact that gender is far too complex to be evaluated by a laboratory test.ā
(Ms Magazine 1988 Athlete Interview)
Gold Medal Womenās Welterweight Boxing Match, 2024 Olympic Games
25 years later, laboratory testing is still carried out by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). āIt is not as easy as some...
...may now want to portray it, that the XX or the XY is the clear distinction between the men and women. This is scientifically not true anymore, and therefore the two are women and they have the right to participate in the womenās competition.ā
President of the IOC, Thomas Bach, on gender determination for athletes.
Whether chromosomes should affect the gender ruling for Olympic Athletes seems to be in the rearview, at least for the IOC. Nowadays, they determine a woman competitor via testosterone as follows:
Olympics test levels of testosterone in serum below 288.5 ng/dL* (10 nmol/L) are required for athletes to be considered women at least as of the latest IOC available report online.
Here are normal human testosterone levels reported by University of Rochester Medical Center:
- 15 to 70 ng/dL for women
- 270 to 1,070 ng/dL for men (depending on age)
"Peer Reviewed Total Testosterone Report", U. of Rochester 2024
*Unit Conversion Calculated by MM
Based on this data, it appears IOC screens testosterone, yet allows women to compete with levels reported as normal for men!
Just a few months prior to the highly controversial conclusion to the match pictured above, another incident occurred a little closer to this publicationās home, in Oregon, USA:
Womenās High School 200m Final Oregon MM Clip
This coach, John Parks, has stated he was fired from his coaching league for his stance on LGBTQ+ regarding the winner of the 200 meter State Highschool track
Whether you agree with this Oregon High School track coachās stance or not, one thing is for sure: More careful attention ought to be paid toward the decision-making processes of our USA & international athletic committees.
Published 8/19/24
Sources:
- "IOC Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism" International Olympic Committee, November 2015
- "Chromosome Count: Who Gets to Decide Which Athletes Are āFeminine ENOUGHā to Compete?" Ms. Magazine 8/12/24
- "International Olympic Committee President Says Chromosomes Donāt Determine Sex: āNot True Anymoreā" National Review 8/9/24
- "Sex eligibility rules for female athletes are complex and legally difficult. Hereās how they work" APNews 8/12/24
- "IOC-Framework-Fairness-Inclusion-Non-discrimination-2021.pdf" International Olympic Committee, 2021