Sarah, another excellent column. Thank you! Yes, a huge victory for women and SCIENCE at the IOC level. But, as you well know, this is not over. Every girl and woman, at every level, deserves fair and safe competition. Onward we go...still, we take the win. It is a big one. The adults are back in the room at least at the IOC level.
This was obvious BS from the get go, but three obvious men winning all three podium positions in the 800M in 2016 should have been the end of it. And if not that, the horrifying sight of a man punching women on stage for the world's entertainment with Imane Khelif. The fact that many female athletes still support them blows my mind.
Thank you for this. Yes, the IOC has finally done the right thing, but it also has a lot to answer for. Why was the IOC so captured by the trans ideology? What were they afraid of?
It’s obvious that this ideology has done so much harm by bullying organizations and people. I just hope that there will soon be an end to this.
Public reckonings would help end this by demonstrating how organizations fell to this ideology, but as Sharron Davies points out, there are practical financial reasons that kind of admission of wrongdoing will never pass Corporate Legal
He’ll with whether it’s ruinous to the IOC. The records must be corrected. The medals rescinded. And it’s not just a quarter century. Stella Walsh competed as a woman in the 1930s. Those medals and records stand to this day. It all needs to be rectified.
As a US Olympian who competed in 1968 and 1972 I was gratified to have a cheek swab done in Mexico and my hair gently pulled in Munich for chromosome testing, to protect me from having to compete against males. I was aware of the history with Stella Walsh and a few others who either were DSD like Walsh or outright disguising themselves as women and going on to live as men.Sad that we did not have the same protections against the cheaters who beat us by taking performance enhancing drugs but still better than the travesty of letting males and intersex or DSD people compete against women that followed. So I celebrate the victory that we have now. Reparations are no more reasonable than they are in other cases and we need to move on to better things. I hope that more will be done to require unaltered birth certificates and that they include chromosome testing at the time of birth. These should be used to verify sex/gender for all athletes at all ages and levels if they wish to participate and would hurt no person who chooses to live as the opposite sex and not claim rights to female spaces and sports and other female-designated activities. (This would also retain the integrity of identity of all people for all purposes). This would protect all involved including protecting girls who some might claim "look" like boys such as is happening in Washington State and California who stubbornly hold out in letting males compete in female sports and then cry about how girls are abused by spectators. That is easy to stop. I would also posit, as the grandmother of three young boys, that they should also not be sexually harassed with "trans boys" using their private spaces such as locker rooms or while standing at urinals next to a female who is pretending to be a boy. I know how vulnerable young boys are as well as young girls so shame on California and Washington State who are perpetuating the ridiculousness and unfairness of all of this and shame on left wing lame politicians who do not have the guts to say enough is enough, just because trump has grabbed the issue for his own political gain.
Congrats on your Olympic achievements! Fascinating how your firsthand experience has shaped your views for the rest of your life. I'm glad the IOC finally listened to female athletes.Also I agree with your concern for boys' restrooms--everyone deserves single-sex sports and personal spaces
Great article, Sarah! Ahhh, if only. If only they would admit they were wrong. If only they would apologize. If only they would erase male records from female sports. If only they would reinstate winning females into their rightful places. If only.
The IOC refused to protect women in the Eastern bloc era (over decades) from obvious testosterone doping that enhanced performance and guaranteed podium positions in almost every sport. They denied approvals to increase female participation by failing to add sports and events in the female category. They only added females to their leadership ranks kicking and screaming about it. So they have a long history of disliking and disapproving of females in sports.
It will surprise me if Kirsty survives this. She still has an uphill battle because men are not going to walk away from this. The door may have shut at the Olymlic level, but its ajar at the collegiate level and its wide open at the high school level. We need to demand fairness at EVERY level
As I said, I think Coventry had the support of the board to do this because they all realized they'd reached an existential crisis, their reputation was that harmed. Of course that's not the right reason to do the right thing, just as all US sports orgs are blatantly ONLY protecting the female category because of Trump's EO. If it's not done because it's the right thing for women, which is to say, the situation now, women's right to a female category has all the permanence of a snowball in March
I'm pretty sure she's in her chair because she will do whatever is necessary to save the IOC. In this case, it was to patch up the hemorrhaging IOC reputation by returning to sanity on women's sports.
I would truly love to read a history of how the IOC decided first to abandon SRY screening after 1996 (there are scientific papers alluding to it) when it was clearly working, and then how they came to the rules offered from 2003 onwards. I suspect DSDs played a large part in the abandonment of SRY screening - those affecting XY males were relatively poorly understood, I think - but why they then took on a ludicrous position that they hadn’t done before isn’t explained.
(Obviously if anyone knows of a writeup please let us all know.)
Sarah, another excellent column. Thank you! Yes, a huge victory for women and SCIENCE at the IOC level. But, as you well know, this is not over. Every girl and woman, at every level, deserves fair and safe competition. Onward we go...still, we take the win. It is a big one. The adults are back in the room at least at the IOC level.
This was obvious BS from the get go, but three obvious men winning all three podium positions in the 800M in 2016 should have been the end of it. And if not that, the horrifying sight of a man punching women on stage for the world's entertainment with Imane Khelif. The fact that many female athletes still support them blows my mind.
totally agree!
"Upon further review , it has come to our attention that men cannot become women. Now move along , nothing to see here".
Thank you for this. Yes, the IOC has finally done the right thing, but it also has a lot to answer for. Why was the IOC so captured by the trans ideology? What were they afraid of?
It’s obvious that this ideology has done so much harm by bullying organizations and people. I just hope that there will soon be an end to this.
Public reckonings would help end this by demonstrating how organizations fell to this ideology, but as Sharron Davies points out, there are practical financial reasons that kind of admission of wrongdoing will never pass Corporate Legal
He’ll with whether it’s ruinous to the IOC. The records must be corrected. The medals rescinded. And it’s not just a quarter century. Stella Walsh competed as a woman in the 1930s. Those medals and records stand to this day. It all needs to be rectified.
Heh, the IOC may disagree
As a US Olympian who competed in 1968 and 1972 I was gratified to have a cheek swab done in Mexico and my hair gently pulled in Munich for chromosome testing, to protect me from having to compete against males. I was aware of the history with Stella Walsh and a few others who either were DSD like Walsh or outright disguising themselves as women and going on to live as men.Sad that we did not have the same protections against the cheaters who beat us by taking performance enhancing drugs but still better than the travesty of letting males and intersex or DSD people compete against women that followed. So I celebrate the victory that we have now. Reparations are no more reasonable than they are in other cases and we need to move on to better things. I hope that more will be done to require unaltered birth certificates and that they include chromosome testing at the time of birth. These should be used to verify sex/gender for all athletes at all ages and levels if they wish to participate and would hurt no person who chooses to live as the opposite sex and not claim rights to female spaces and sports and other female-designated activities. (This would also retain the integrity of identity of all people for all purposes). This would protect all involved including protecting girls who some might claim "look" like boys such as is happening in Washington State and California who stubbornly hold out in letting males compete in female sports and then cry about how girls are abused by spectators. That is easy to stop. I would also posit, as the grandmother of three young boys, that they should also not be sexually harassed with "trans boys" using their private spaces such as locker rooms or while standing at urinals next to a female who is pretending to be a boy. I know how vulnerable young boys are as well as young girls so shame on California and Washington State who are perpetuating the ridiculousness and unfairness of all of this and shame on left wing lame politicians who do not have the guts to say enough is enough, just because trump has grabbed the issue for his own political gain.
Congrats on your Olympic achievements! Fascinating how your firsthand experience has shaped your views for the rest of your life. I'm glad the IOC finally listened to female athletes.Also I agree with your concern for boys' restrooms--everyone deserves single-sex sports and personal spaces
Great article, Sarah! Ahhh, if only. If only they would admit they were wrong. If only they would apologize. If only they would erase male records from female sports. If only they would reinstate winning females into their rightful places. If only.
The IOC refused to protect women in the Eastern bloc era (over decades) from obvious testosterone doping that enhanced performance and guaranteed podium positions in almost every sport. They denied approvals to increase female participation by failing to add sports and events in the female category. They only added females to their leadership ranks kicking and screaming about it. So they have a long history of disliking and disapproving of females in sports.
It will surprise me if Kirsty survives this. She still has an uphill battle because men are not going to walk away from this. The door may have shut at the Olymlic level, but its ajar at the collegiate level and its wide open at the high school level. We need to demand fairness at EVERY level
As I said, I think Coventry had the support of the board to do this because they all realized they'd reached an existential crisis, their reputation was that harmed. Of course that's not the right reason to do the right thing, just as all US sports orgs are blatantly ONLY protecting the female category because of Trump's EO. If it's not done because it's the right thing for women, which is to say, the situation now, women's right to a female category has all the permanence of a snowball in March
Thank you so much for this piece. It needed to be said!
Excellent essay.
One copy-editing nitpick: near the end, I think it should say “she implied” rather than “she inferred.”
I truly hope that Kirsty Coventry has come to destroy the IOC, with a vengeance fuelled by those 23 years of lived misogyny.
A woManchurian Candidate, if you will.
I'm pretty sure she's in her chair because she will do whatever is necessary to save the IOC. In this case, it was to patch up the hemorrhaging IOC reputation by returning to sanity on women's sports.
True.
I’m just not sure that can be done without exposing the IOC to existential liability — they’re a powerful NGO, but they’re not the Church.
But either way, bring it on 🔥
For Angela Carini, for Melissa Bishop, for every female athlete elite or otherwise who has been denied fair sport & just treatment …
I would truly love to read a history of how the IOC decided first to abandon SRY screening after 1996 (there are scientific papers alluding to it) when it was clearly working, and then how they came to the rules offered from 2003 onwards. I suspect DSDs played a large part in the abandonment of SRY screening - those affecting XY males were relatively poorly understood, I think - but why they then took on a ludicrous position that they hadn’t done before isn’t explained.
(Obviously if anyone knows of a writeup please let us all know.)