World Athletics President Sebastian Coe announced Thursday that transgender women athletes will be banned from female competitions starting March 31.
Coe said the World Athletics Council recently voted in favor of this decision. According to Coe, the decision was “guided by [World Athletics’] over-arching principle which is to protect the female category.”
Currently, there are no transgender women competing on an international level.
Many fans and athletes took to Twitter to celebrate the announcement, while others called the decision “disappointing.”
Nikki Hiltz, an elite runner who identifies as non-binary, questioned how the decision is supposed to protect female athletes if no transgender women compete internationally.
“Would be so cool if we addressed actual threats to women’s sports like sexual harassment, lack of women leadership, unequal representation,” Hiltz wrote on Twitter.
The Council also changed the rules for intersex athletes — those with “Differences in Sex Development (DSD)” — cutting their maximum allowed plasma testosterone level in half, from 5 nanomoles per liter to 2.5 nmol/L.
It expanded this regulation to all events, with the previous rule only applying to events from 400m to the mile
This means intersex athletes like Francine Niyonsaba, the 2021 Diamond League 5000m champion, and Christine Mboma, the Tokyo 2021 silver medalist in the 200m, will not be able to compete at the World Athletics Championships in August, as the new requirements stipulate athletes must meet the 2.5 nmol/L threshold for at least six months before competing while the rules are altered. The World Championships are only five months away.
Coe also announced that World Athletics will establish a “working group” to consult transgender athletes and possibly creating further research opportunities about transgender athletes in competition.
“We must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations,” Coe said in a press release by World Athletics. “We will be guided in this by the science around physical performance and male advantage which will inevitably develop over the coming years.”
