Call me obsessed—I prefer to think of it as “sane” or “curious about how exactly the entire world lost its collective mind”—but since most women are still affected by the Afghanistan produced by the IOC’s 23-year bout of slavering male mania, such that major media framed that organization’s deliverance from evil to the sunlight of women’s sports for women as “restricting trans rights,” it seems reasonable to treat this as an ongoing epidemic. To understand it and prevent future outbreaks, you have to go back to the first public record of the disease as policy in sport, the IOC’s 2003 Stockholm Consensus.
Dangerously well-informed Canadian Olympian and women’s sports advocate (I guess dangerous and well-informed are redundant) Alison Sydor, knowing I’m vulnerable to suggestion, sent me three links: Emma Hilton’s 2019 talk in which she describes the remarkable lack of science behind the IOC’s policies 2003 through 2021; the Stockholm Consensus link, above, that includes all the authors of that document; and a 2005 Lancet article written by Arne Ljungqvist and Myron Genel, two of the 2003 IOC Medical Committee members, detailing how they came to the (science-free) decision to allow “male transsexuals” into female sports. If you’ve got a lot of time, I encourage you to read/listen to them all. Anyway, the ensuing traumatic event is essentially all Alison’s fault.
All seven people on the 2003 IOC Medical Committee are really old, possibly dead. As such, it’s important to talk to the living. You know, primary source journalism. I emailed Ljungqvist, Joe Simpson and Myron Genel, asking them to talk about their 2003 decision to allow men in women’s sports, in light of the IOC’s recent return to sex-based categories. Myron Genel got back to me the same day, and we made a date to talk on the phone the following day.
As you would, I panicked and really prepared for this interview with an expert, an architect of the IOC’s very first male-in-female-sports policy. I read virtually everything—the Lancet article, listened to Emma Hilton, Myron’s many publications, as recent as 2023, on the inclusion of “transgender” athletes in women’s sports, and familiarized myself with his long resume—professor emeritus and senior research scientist and clinician in pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, expert advisor for the IAAF (now World Athletics) in the 1990s, one of seven people on the medical committee making policy for the IOC in 2003 and 2015, member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, author of 197 papers on pediatric endocrinology. That isn’t even the half of it. I frantically emailed Alison Sydor and asked her what she would ask this legend of sport policy. I made up an optimistic list of 23 questions based on my research. Alison sent me a list of questions. I was very concerned about looking stupid while talking to this person whose entire career was navigating the complex world of pediatric DSDs. Myron is, on paper, outrageously credentialed, absolutely in the thick of sports policy around sex and gender since the 1990s.
Prior to our phone call,Myron emailed me this 2025 paper arguing against SRY screening in the female category. Seems like he hadn’t changed his mind about men in women’s sports. I replied for the sake of discussion, with two short videos by Ross Tucker supporting SRY screening and explaining the CAIS exemption. (Which he ignored). The more I read, the greater the dissonance between Myron’s “research” and his reputation as a “scientific and medical expert” became. For example, the very first sentence of his 2017 article in Current Sports Medicine Reports entitled Transgender Athletes: How Can They Be Accommodated?:
From ancient times, competitive sport has been divided primarily by the traditional concepts of male/female identity…
Uhhmmm, male and female have, since ancient times, been identity categories? Not sex? Calling sex categories “traditional,” as if the ancient Greeks had arbitrarily made them up and they sort of stuck?
Myron was also, as I discovered within the first 20 seconds of our conversation, 1) nearly totally deaf, 2) suffering from probably age-related confusion, and 3) utterly unfamiliar with being asked questions or challenged when he espoused absolute falsehoods. To say our conversation did not go well is an understatement of Olympic proportion. I regret that I’m not tech savvy enough to have recorded the incident so you could fully appreciate the wild swoops and sudden veerings of our chat. It was a pretty busy 10 minutes for me, trying to take notes with one hand, shouting into my phone which I held right close to my mouth with the other, and hanging on with both hands to Myron’s driverless train of thought.
Here’s the conversation according to my notes. Just envision all of my lines delivered at glass-shattering volume.
Me: As I mentioned in my email, I’m interested in the discussion that led to the 2003 Stockholm Consensus. It sounds from your 2005 Lancet article like the IOC was not concerned about male advantage from DSDs. Why is that?
Myron: It was not clear at the time but that changed. Further research indicated postpubertal transgender athletes did not fully adjust from male to female as we thought. That was an important caveat. It was later demonstrated that there was residual muscle power remaining after the two year limit. The main caveat, the most important adjustment made by the IOC was the recommendation that participation by transgender athletes should be, well, there were two… 1. They should be adjusted on a sport-by-sport basis. It would be ridiculous to say there was any advantage in, say, archery or horse riding. That’s absurd. So it needed to be sport specific. In those sports that were…where muscle power is, uhhh…track and field and swimming were the most prominent. That’s different. The other issue is that transgender was often conflated with DSDs. Caster Semenya and others. She identified as female. Born and raised as females…DSD conflated with…. these women….conflated with… uhhhhh, so that was…
Me: I think the reason some male DSDs—5-ARD, what Caster Semenya had—and male transsexuals, as you called them in 2003, are conflated is that they both have male advantage. Isn’t that what you were concerned with? Male advantage in female sports?
Myron: Well… yeah…alright… from my perspective, our conclusion was…the fundamental recommendations were, they were born and raised as females so they should compete in the female category. And…
Me: Why? How is that fair for females? 5-ARD is a male DSD. It only affects males. Yes, Semenya was recorded as female at birth but that was a mistake by the attending physician at his birth. The IAAF knew Caster Semenya was male back in 2009. Why should women have to pay for a mistake made by the attending physician at birth?
Myron: Well… yeah…[laughs]… Again, I repeat, I think it is… decisions on this should be sports specific.
Me: Well, to your point, I think horse riding is not separated by sex, and archery—men have longer arms and much more upper body strength than women. Like 30% more. So they can draw the bow more easily. So archery is sex affected.
Myron: Look, does a 6’10” woman have an unfair advantage in volleyball?
Me: We don’t have volleyball teams for tall women and short women. We have women’s volleyball and men’s volleyball. There are a lot of tall women in volleyball but it’s not unfair to be a 6’10” woman because they’re all women. Or they’re supposed to be.
Myron: [mumbling] Did you call…look, what we said was…it should be sport-by-sport…
Me: Yes, but Caster Semenya did run in a sport affected by power, endurance, and strength. He did have male advantage. He is male. Why is it fair for him to race in the female category just because of a mistake made at his birth? That happens with a lot of 5-ARD babies born in less developed places.
Myron: [mumbled] Well, she was born and raised female…
Me: That’s not true. Semenya was born male, 100% male but with a genetic problem in that he didn’t develop a penis. Otherwise completely male. Went through male puberty [crippling dissonance as I’m explaining XY 5-ARD to a pediatric endocrinologist who treated 5-ARD patients for more than 50 years]
Myron: I’m not saying she… it’s not necessarily fair for her to compete in the 800 …
Me: But he did compete and won a gold medal and….
Myron: [yelling] Look, did you call to argue with me? I have better things to do.
[I realized the conversation had devolved and was circling the bowl, so I cut bait, and went directly to the ten-million-dollar question, which, ironically, Alison and I had independently starred on both of our question lists as the key, the bottom line, if I got nothing else. This one question answers everything about why men were and are in women’s sports]
Me: I want to talk about something else. Back in 2003, actually before 2003, a handful of male transsexuals—again, that’s the term you used then—had asked the IOC to compete in women’s sports. Of course, there were male and female categories. You knew these men were male, that humans don’t change sex, so these were a few men who had cut off their genitals and thought they were women, identified as women, but of course, they’re still male. Did you ever consider just telling these two transgender athletes no?
Myron: [long silence]
Me: I mean, you called them male transsexuals, so you knew they were male. Not eligible for the female category, right? Did you ever consider just telling them that? And that they could compete in the male category? Was that discussed?
Myron: Ok… alright… [laughs]… Uhhh…..We’re talking about transgender [he exaggerated the enunciation of transgender] athletes, not males or females….These are…people who have changed their gender….
Me: Wait, so are you saying transgender athletes are neither male nor female, that they’re another category of human?
Myron: [distressed, getting louder] Look, I don’t want to argue. Let’s forget about it… DSDs… post-pubertal, who changed their sex, those were people that I used to treat! DSDs born and raised as the gender they… more importantly, if the individual identifies as female at birth…is DSD at birth…
Me: But is it fair for women to have to pay in fairness for a mistake someone made at birth?
Myron: Nevermind what it wasn’t… sport specific…
Me: If you have women’s sports which are designed to include females and exclude males, why would you let in some males?
Myron: [mumbles] Let’s talk about Maria Patino.
Me: Was she the woman, the track athlete, who had XY chromosomes but was androgen insensitive?
Myron: [yelling] Alright, look, I don’t have time for this. I didn’t think you were calling…
Me: I just want to clarify—she was XY but had CAIS, right? The new IOC policy has a special exemption for CAIS. They will be flagged by the SRY screen but that’s the thing—it’s just a screen. They aren’t excluded on that. And all women who wish to compete in the female category will have this SRY screen, so no one will be targeted or singled out. And if further testing shows they have CAIS, they are cleared to compete in the female category. No male advantage. Maria Patino would be eligible to compete.
Myron: Oh. So we agree on that.
Me: In the 2005 Lancet article you wrote with Arne Ljungqvist, you mentioned that males who had gonadectomies and took hormones similar to a female profile would probably be few in number, and that they’d be mostly in Masters age level, but then you mentioned Renee Richards and a couple transsexual golfers who had been quite successful at the top level of women’s sports. But you then went on to say it would be fair and recommended the IOC adopt that policy. Why? Why not do more research?
Myron: [long silence] Alright…Ok [laughs]… I’m not… the article…I told you I didn’t… [shouting] that was 1999! I don’t want to talk about an article from 1999!
Me: But you made a policy that was really revolutionary. Allowing a way for men to compete in the female category. I want to know what you were thinking when you made that policy.
Myron: [shouting] I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT! You’ve called to argue. I thought you were calling to talk about…You’re just calling to argue…there’s nothing to discuss. Thank you. Goodbye. I have more important things to do. [hangs up]
I’m pretty cynical about the process of policymaking that broke the sex boundary, that first allowed men in women’s sports—the quality of science and medicine and ethics, and the responsibility to balance and include all stakeholders in the process— but this shocked me. It’s clear, Myron was not chosen to be one of those seven experts on the Science and Medicine Committee, or subsequent consultations, because of his expertise and specialized knowledge. There were many others with at least as much knowledge and experience. He was chosen for his commitment to advancing gender ideology and willingness to overlook science and ethics when it was inconvenient.
There was something profoundly disturbing about a medical professional of his stature mouthing absolute nonsensical, easily proven, falsehoods—that Caster Semenya was born female, that people who believe they are the opposite sex are neither male nor female (but should compete as females). Did he really believe these absurdities, or is this just what he tells journalists? Either way, shocking. And if possible, even more disturbing was that he didn’t seem to have any concern for the global destruction of women’s rights that resulted from his lies.
Myron never mentioned women in our conversation, and it’s clear that the 2003 Stockholm Committee never considered women, half the population, as “having rights.” I sort of knew that, in my gut—that’s the only way they could have come to the decision they did—but for Myron to flat out admit it, and angrily defend it, was shocking. I keep using that word; I can’t think of something stronger. Their focus was, always and singularly, on the desires of men. No matter how few (when the WIAA allowed boys to self-ID into girls’ sports in 2007, there were zero boys seeking to do so; the NCAA erased women’s sports in 2010 for perhaps two male athletes), no matter that these men were clinically mentally unwell, Myron et al never even considered simply telling these men no. Wouldn’t that be the normal response to two objectively unhinged men making insane requests of the largest, most elite sports organization in the world? Just a simple, No? I am haunted by the monumental waste of time and resources, the 23-year injustice to women, that could have been avoided had those seven people simply made the obvious decision to gently blow off two deluded men. That they didn’t, that instead they honored those unwell men’s demands, fully aware that this would harm all women, is really hard to comprehend. It’s a gut punch to hear an “expert,” a person with power and influence, say that women don’t really matter. They’re sub-human. And that men do. Always. It’s shocking to know without a shadow of doubt that the IOC’s decision in 2003 was not based on science, or medicine, or ethics, or even legality, but because men wanted it. I like to think that in 2026 we’ve progressed, that we’re enlightened, living in an age of reason, that women are of course the equal but distinct other class of human, that we’re better than Afghanistan. And then I talked to Myron for 10 minutes, and a pretty ugly truth emerged. Myron’s pissed off that I asked those questions, and I’m kind of sickened by the result. Lose-lose. That’s gender ideology/unadulterated patriarchy in a nutshell.
That’s some existential shit. Okay. Deep breath. What’s even more astounding, in a good way, than 23 years of wandering through smoking, post-apocalyptic, craven-masses-huddled-in-caves man-iverse? That in about nine months (coincidence?), Kirsty Coventry, Dr. Jane Thornton, a working group of people who pay attention to science, and female athletes (!) have miraculously delivered the IOC, at least, out of darkness into the sunshine of women as a recognizable and recognized group. That’s my next post. Take this news with alcohol, and carry on.
Hanlon's Razor is "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence." It's strange how we always expect, and maybe in some weird ways hope, for malice when it comes to explaining things like IOC approval for men in women's sports. I think if it was part of some evil intentional plot towards malevolent means, we could at least explain in some sort of logical—if not rational—way. Bret Weinstein has a great quote along these lines: "Hitler was a monster, but he wasn't a madman."
And yet, I feel like more often than not, Hanlon gets the last laugh: it's incompetence, or ignorance, not malice. Or, as seems to be in this case, something in between and maudlin, like chauvinism or prejudice.
We expected a cabal of evil genius, but find a handful of full-of-themselves jerks.
Regardless, great reporting, my sympathies for having to endure that (better you than me!!).
This has given me a new perspective on why this happened. If he treated children with DSDs, especially 5-ARD, what was the treatment? Was his goal to turn these boys into girls, because a man can't be a man without a penis? Did he spend his career telling parents he could turn their boys into girls by removing their testicles and giving them estrogen? If that is what he did, to deny male transsexuals the ability to compete in women's sports because they're not women means he would have to grapple with the fact that he lied to parents and children, put children through unnecessary surgeries and medical treatment, in the belief that he could turn boys into girls. He can't admit that Semenya isn't female because that would mean he butchered little boys for a lie.