Mandatory testing introduced last year to verify the sex of track and field athletes has been branded a “backwards step” and a “harmful anachronism” by a group of academics.
World Athletics implemented testing for the SRY gene last September, a measure designed to ensure that only biologically female athletes can compete in the female category at the elite level.
The governing body’s president, Sebastian Coe, stated at the time that the decision was taken to “protect and promote the integrity of women’s sport”.
However, 34 academics have now sharply criticised the testing in a report submitted to the British Journal of Sports Medicine and shared with the Press Association.
The group, which includes Professor Alun Williams from the Manchester Metropolitan University Institute for Performance Research, argues that the testing violates athletes’ human rights and risks creating significant stigma and psychological distress.
“These new regulations are an anachronism, and a harmful one,” the report authors wrote.
“They are a simplistic way of reducing a characteristic to a single gene, which does not reflect the complex nature of sex, and is couched in narratives of protecting the sanctity of fair competition in the women’s category that are not based in science and need to be challenged.”
The report further highlights an absence of robust data demonstrating that the presence of the SRY gene in individuals with a difference in sexual development (DSD) directly correlates with athletic performance advantages.
Professor Williams added separately: “There are already stigma and shame to people both inside and outside of sport arising from these regulations, and these consequences cannot be considered proportionate to the objective pursued by World Athletics.
“The longevity of the new regulations will probably be determined in court, but not before subjecting women and girl athletes to foreseeable and unjustifiable harm.”
The report also challenges World Athletics’ implication that genetic tests are straightforward, easy to administer, preserve dignity and privacy, and maintain confidentiality.
“These ostensibly reassuring words ignore the practical challenges, legal constraints, and huge ethical problems of implementing such tests across 214 member federations,” the report concluded.
In response, a spokesperson for World Athletics defended the policy, stating: “Biological men competing against biological women violates the human rights of thousands of female athletes who have the right to compete on a fair and level playing field. The expansive research on the performance advantage of biological men in sport is unequivocal.”
They added: “All athletes competing in the female category at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo last year successfully took a once-in-a-lifetime low-invasive SRY test – an excellent example of global co-operation among our 214 member federations and World Athletics to ensure the protection of the female category.
“Our thanks go to them for having the passion and determination to make this happen.
“Clear and comprehensive communication, counselling if requested, complete confidentiality, and robust follow-up processes if test results are inconclusive are a critical and core part of World Athletics’ implementation of this test designed to protect and promote the integrity of women’s sport.”
The International Olympic Committee is expected to issue a consensus statement on how it believes the female category could be best protected in the first quarter of this year, according to its president Kirsty Coventry.
