September 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will not implement new, stricter guidelines for the participation of “transgender” athletes in time for the 2020 Tokyo Games because the panel of scientists advising the IOC is struggling to agree on a balance between biology and “fairness.”
In July, researchers from New Zealand released a paper concluding that the IOC’s current guidelines pose an “intolerable unfairness” to actual women competing against gender-confused men, who retain male advantages such as superior “joint articulation, stroke volume and maximal oxygen uptake” despite hormone therapy.
The Guardian reported that the scientists had been expected to recommend that the IOC reduce the acceptable testosterone levels for “trans woman” athletes by half, which supporters said would allow them to compete how they “identify” while significantly mitigating their physical advantages.
Yet the recommendations have stalled for several reasons. Some cited research showing that testosterone suppression still wouldn’t erase substantial physical advantages, while others appear to more ideological concerns. The Guardian's sources say that agreement is “far more difficult than expected because this is such a tricky political and emotive issue.”
Additional meetings are planned in hopes of getting individual sporting federations to establish their own transgender policies, but draft proposals for the IOC’s own policy have “gone around the houses” without success and the issue is not expected to be resolved in time for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Whatever the IOC decides, controversy will continue over gender-confused athletes competing in sports that are typically separated by sex to account for the biological differences between the men and women. Several prominent female athletes have spoken out against relaxing the traditional standards, arguing the ramifications will be drastic for women’s sports.
“A man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organization is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires,” tennis legend Martina Navratilova argued in February. “It’s insane and it’s cheating. I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair.”
In March, Olympic swimming silver medalist Sharron Davies warned that letting “trans men” into women’s categories “has the potential to ruin women’s sport. … It’s not anything to do with saying sport isn’t for everybody, it’s asking how we classify it.”