IOC relaxes guidelines on transgender athletes

According to ESPN.com’s Christina Kahrl, the revised rules will place fewer restrictions on transgender athletes when it comes to their ability to compete in the Games.

There’s even better news for these men; according to transgender guidelines approved by the International Olympic Committee, genitalia does not serve as a prerequisite.

The guidelines explain: “It is necessary to ensure insofar as possible that trans athletes are not excluded from the opportunity to participate in sporting competition”. Trans women will still need to undergo a one-year waiting period after starting hormone replacement therapy.

The Olympics already had rules formally allowing and acknowledging trans athletes’ right to compete but with specific provisions under the Stockholm Consensus adopted in 2004 before the Olympics in Athens: Transgender athletes had to have gender reassignment surgery; they must have legal recognition of the gender they were assigned at birth; and they had to have undergone at least two years of hormone replacement therapy after surgery. The guidelines stem from an unpublicized “Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism” the International Olympic Committee held last November.

There are, however, professional transgender athletes who compete today, including cyclists Natalie van Gogh of the Netherlands and Michelle Dumaresq of Canada, and Team USA duathlete Chris Mosier, who identifies as male.

G. These guidelines are a living document and will be subject to review in light of any scientific or medical developments. You don’t go below 10 from day one. “It can take more than one year or two years”.

Indian sprinter Dutee Chand was suspended by the IAAF in 2014 due to hyperandrogenism and missed the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. The policy was “in all likelihood” intended only to prevent trans female athletes from competing with testicles and the associated higher testosterone levels, even though those levels can be chemically blocked without surgery.

The IOC has decided that male-to-female athletes can participate in the women’s events and vice-versa.

The issue of gender verification gained global attention after South African runner Caster Semenya was ordered to undergo sex tests after winning the 800-meter world title in 2009.

She later returned to the sport in time to claim silver at both the Daegu 2011 World Championships and the London 2012 Olympics, where she could be upgraded to gold after Russian victor Mariya Savinova was named in the WADA Independent Commission report of athletes implicated in a systemic doping system.