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Female track and field athletes will be subject to a mandatory once-in-a-lifetime genetic test to prove their biological sex if they wish to compete in world ranking competitions.
World Athletics announced the new regulations overnight, which will come into effect on September 1 and will be in force at the 2025 world athletics championships in Tokyo which begin on September 13.
Female track and field athletes will be subjective mandatory genetic testing.Credit: Eddie Jim
The SRY gene test – which reveals whether there are Y chromosomes present (male chromosomes) – can be conducted via a cheek swab or blood test.
The decision from World Athletics comes nine days after the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee changed its eligibility criteria to bar transgender women from competing in female categories, in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s executive order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said the decision was made for the “promotion of the integrity of women’s sport”.
“It is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling. The test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe.Credit: AP
“We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female. It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology.
“We particularly want to thank our Member Federations for their support and commitment in the implementation of these new regulations.”
Female athletes whose tests show the presence of male chromosomes will not be allowed to compete at world ranking competitions. Once passed, women won’t need to do the test again.
Athletics has spent years debating eligibility criteria to compete in women’s events, amid questions over biological advantages for transgender athletes and those with differences of sex development (DSD) – conditions where there is a discrepancy between a person’s external and internal genitals, sometimes known as intersex.
Two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya.Credit: AP
World Athletics bans transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in women’s events, while it requires female DSD athletes whose bodies produce high testosterone levels to lower them to be eligible.
Earlier this year, a working group found that those rules were not tight enough, with a pre-clearance test for the SRY gene being one of several recommendations the group made for revised rules.
The test was also approved by World Boxing in May when they introduced mandatory sex testing for all boxers.
Earlier this month, the European Court upheld a 2023 ruling that two-time 800 metres Olympic champion Caster Semenya’s – who has naturally high levels of testosterone – appeal to a Swiss Federal Tribunal against regulations that barred her from competing had not been properly heard.
Semenya was appealing against World Athletics regulations that female athletes with DSDs medically reduce their testosterone levels.
Semenya won gold at the 2012 Olympics in London and the 2016 Olympics in Rio, but has since been effectively banned from high-level competitions.
With Reuters
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