&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "'Gene test now mandatory for female athletes', says World Athletics")
Athletes will be able to participate in the women's category for world ranking events like the World Championships only if they pass a one-off gene test as an attempt to safeguard the integrity of women's sport, World Athletics announced on Wednesday (July 30). The one-off test for the SRY gene that helps in establishing biological sex can be done through a cheek swab or blood sample.
The test protocol will be monitored by member federations and the new rules take effect on September 1, before the September 13-21 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
"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," World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said in a statement. "The test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case. 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."
Athletics has debated qualification standards to participate in women's competitions for years, with uncertainty surrounding biological benefits for transgender competitors and individuals with differences in sex development (DSD). World Athletics excludes transgender women who have experienced male puberty from women's competitions, while it forces female DSD athletes who produce high levels of testosterone to reduce them in order to qualify.
Earlier this year, a working group determined that those regulations were not stringent enough, with a pre-clearance test for the SRY gene being one of a number of recommendations the group put forward for new regulations. SRY gene confirms the existence of the Y chromosome, and it is a indicator for biological sex.
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The test was also sanctioned by World Boxing in May when they made sex testing compulsory for all boxers. Earlier this month, the European Court supported a 2023 judgment that double 800 metres Olympic champion Caster Semenya's challenge of an appeal to a Swiss Federal Tribunal to a Swiss law that excluded her from competition had not been heard adequately. Semenya was challenging World Athletics rules that female athletes with DSDs medically lower their testosterone levels.
