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Editorial
We should oppose policies based on false science or distorted evidence with the potential to cause harm
  1. Luci Olewinski
  1. Family Medicine, The University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Luci Olewinski, Family Medicine, The University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; lolewin1{at}uthsc.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2023-106946

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    Sports participation policies affecting transgender athletes should be based on scientific evidence

    In late 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) passed their new Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations with the hopes of allowing International Federations (IFs) room to create participation policies appropriate for the unique needs of their sport.1 2 Since then IFs have responded with restrictive policies that do not meet the IOC standard that ‘principles of inclusion and non-discrimination…should be promoted and defended at all levels of sport’.2 It is especially concerning that these transgender participation policies are being crafted without scientific or medical basis: flawed studies are cited, research is distorted and misapplied or practices that have been discredited are reintroduced.3 Scientists, physicians and other members of the sports medicine and athlete support community should be concerned by any policy that pits inclusion against fairness and systematically excludes certain humans from elite sport. We should be especially alarmed when these policies are based on distorted evidence, discredited evidence or fallacious application of evidence.

    Recent policies are arbitrary and capricious with no rational basis

    The IF for swimming, World Aquatics, requires chromosomal verification (2022), which has been previously found to be an inappropriate and inaccurate form of gender verification by both sport and medical communities.2 4 5 World Aquatics and the IF for running, World Athletics (2023), also require athletes to suppress puberty by Tanner Stage 2 or age 12. For World Aquatics this is …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors I am the sole author of this editorial. Any views represented here are my own and do not represent the views of my employer or any groups with which I am affiliated.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.