Olympic chiefs told to ‘fix’ trans rules

OLYMPIC chiefs have been urged to improve their controversial guidelines around transgender participation by one of the most senior figures in sport, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Rule-makers need clearer guidance when setting the rules around gender eligibility, according to the president of the body representing summer Olympic sports federations.

Franceso Ricci Bitti said that the updated recommendations should include input from top scientists, after the International Olympic Committee was heavily criticised for publishing a framework that supposedly overlooked such expertise.

The Mail on Sunday, meanwhile, can disclose that football governing body FIFA has broadened an external consultation on its own draft transgender guidelines to include more scientists.

‘The human rights approach says the transgender woman should be free live a normal life,’ Bitti said. ‘This is completely true, of course, but not perhaps in the elite professional side of sport.

‘The feeling of the international federations is that inclusion is a social value. Therefore, the eligibility rule around restriction should be first science-based and designed to preserve fairness in top competition. I believe the most recent guidelines are too evasive and therefore we have to improve them or otherwise we lose the levels (of competitiveness).’

Bitti, who heads the influential Association of Summer Olympic International Federations, is arguably the most senior figure within the Olympic movement to break ranks and question the IOC’s gender eligibilty framework.

The guidelines, which were published in November, dropped the requirement for transgender women and athletes with differences in sexual development (DSD) to suppress their testosterone levels to within 5nanomoles per litre over 12 months leading up to competition.

The framework said no transgender woman or DSD athlete should be assumed to have a physical advantage over female athletes without evidence to prove otherwise. It further stipulated athletes should be allowed to compete in the gender category of their choice as long as fairness is not compromised.

The framework was acclaimed as a step forward by human rights organisations concerned about the prejudicial treatment of trans and DSD athletes. But it was criticised by female groups and scientists who said it overlooked the athletic benefits of male puberty and placed too much responsibility on individual sports to draw up their own restrictions. Many federations lack the expertise and resources to do so.

Bitti was speaking at a conference in Rome organised by the International Federation of Sports Medicine Associations. ‘Society has become a lot more complex in the last 10 to 15 years and we are moving towards a more inclusive one in which everyone’s human rights must be respected,’ he said. ‘We need to come up with solutions that maximise inclusion, fairness and safety in elite sport, but it is very difficult. Two of the concepts are totally incompatible in many sports, inclusion and fairness. At the top, sport is not inclusive. When you beat someone, you screw them over.’

Olympic sports including rowing, triathlon and hockey are reviewing their gender eligibility guidelines.

At the conference, Michael Geistlinger, a professor of international law, said the IOC had contravened the European Convention of Human Rights by compromising fairness among female athletes.

The Mail on Sunday revealed FIFA has drafted a framework that took its cue from the IOC recommendations. However, its consultation is seeking advice from sports scientists who believe there should, at the very least, exist a medical threshold for female competition.

‘We want to work with the IOC to get a more solid set of guidelines,’ Bitti said. ‘What we expect is a little more definition.’