‘Groundbreaking’ step for trans athletes

International Olympic Committee guidelines to sports bodies on transgender participation have been hailed as groundbreaking for reversing assumptions that trans women enjoy automatic advantages in female sports.

But several experts say the framework of 10 principles, released by the IOC this week, likely can still be used to restrict the eligibility of trans women.

The IOC said the framework, which updates 2015 guidelines, introduces a more evidence-based approach to eligibility that requires proof based on peer-reviewed research a trans athlete might have a competitive advantage.

It acknowledges “the central role that eligibility criteria play in ensuring fairness, particularly in highlevel organized sport” among women.

The framework “recognizes both the need to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their gender identity or sex variations, can practise sport in a safe, harassment-free environment” and “the interest of everyone … to participate in fair competitions where no participant has an unfair and disproportionate advantage over the rest.”

The IOC says it remains “within the remit of each sport and its governing body to determine how an athlete may be at a disproportionate advantage compared with their peers.”

“The IOC is therefore not in a position to issue regulations that define eligibility criteria for every sport, discipline or event across the very different national jurisdictions and sport systems.”

The guidelines are not legally binding.

The new guidelines have been applauded by prominent trans athlete Quinn, who uses only one name and who won an Olympic gold medal with the Canada women’s soccer team in July, becoming the first openly transgender or non-binary athlete to compete at an Olympics.

Quinn said in a statement that sports policy often “does not reflect the lived experience of marginalized athletes and that’s especially true when it comes to transgender athletes and athletes with sex variations.

“This new IOC framework is groundbreaking in the way that it reflects what we know to be true — that athletes like me and my peers participate in sports without any inherent advantage, and that our humanity deserves to be respected.”