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Today the IAAF became the first international sports federation to approve the adoption of rules and regulations governing the eligibility of females with hyperandrogenism (an excessive production of testosterone). Everyone is talking about these regulations this morning- even Justin Bieber.


The new rules came after an18 month-long review by an IAAF "expert working group" who studied issues relating to the participation of female athletes with hyperandrogenism in athletics. This group worked closely with the IOC Medical Commission. The new rules come into force for all International Competitions on May 1, 2011. The International Olympic Committee last week admitted the need to draw up clear rules to deal with cases involving female athletes with excessive levels of male hormones. The IOC's executive board said its medical commission had put forward several principles on which rules regarding hyperandrogenism, a condition involving overproduction of male sex hormones, should be based.


The regulations will follow the below "key principles" (full text of the principle available here). The actual text of the regulations, which will provide greater detail about the program will not be available until May 1, 2011.


The Key Principles of Determining Whether you are "Woman enough" to Compete (Emphasis and Commentary Added)

1. Competition in athletics will continue to be divided into men’s and women’s competition due to the difference in sporting performance between elite men and women, that is predominantly due to higher levels of androgenic hormones in men;
2. A female with hyperandrogenism who is recognised as a female in law shall be eligible to compete in women’s competition in athletics provided that she has androgen levels below the male range (measured by reference to testosterone levels in serum) or, if she has androgen levels within the male range she also has an androgen resistance which means that she derives no competitive advantage from such levels; (Ie. Being legally a woman, as defined by your home country of citizenship is not enough for the IAAF)
3. A pool of international medical experts has been appointed by the IAAF to review cases referred to it under the regulations as an independent expert medical panel and to make recommendations to the IAAF in such cases to decide on the eligibility of female athletes with hyperandrogenism (How will an athlete be referred to the panel? What if there is disagreements on the panel?)
4. A 3-level medical: this medical process may include, where necessary, the expert medical panel referring an athlete with potential hyperandrogenism for full examination and diagnosis in accordance with best medical practice at one of the 6 IAAF-approved specialist reference centres around the world; (As an athlete, I cringe at what they could mean by "full examination and diagnosis." Also, who is going to pay to send the athlete to one of the 6 approved "reference centres"?)
5. The medical process will be conducted in strict confidentiality and all cases shall be referred to the expert medical panel on an anonymous basis; (Strict confidentiality, ya right. Just like how MLB holds steriod testing results strictly confidential).
6. A female athlete who declines, fails or refuses to comply with the eligibility determination process under the regulations shall not be eligible to compete in women’s competition.
7. Male to Female Sex Reassignment: The IAAF Council has further today modified its existing regulations concerning the participation in women’s competition of athletes who have undergone male to female sex reassignment. These regulations shall also be published on 1 May 2011.(Note: the content of these regulations were not released).

How Will Female Athletes React?
Laura Robinson, a former Canadian national level cyclist, reacted to the news by stating that:

"Once again the female body has been 'medicalized' by sports administrators, the vast majority of whom are male. Bodies and sexuality do not exist on a two dimensional grid with men at one end and women at the other; human beings and our sexuality exist on a matrix and even then we slide around from place to place. What is most alarming are the IAAF certified labs women will be forced to go to so their hormonal 'problems' can be corrected. They will be banned from competition unless they subject themselves to these treatments. This forced 'treatment' has shades of Joseph Menegle--the doctor who performed experiments on non-Aryans during the Holocaust."

Clearly she is not impressed.

My biggest concern with the regulations is requiring women athletes, on a mandatory basis, to undergo "full examination and diagnosis" after being "referred." How does a female athlete get referred? For not looking feminine enough? Can anyone refer them? If I am a second place medal winner, can I always refer the athlete who finished in first position? Will EVERY referral be subject to a "full examination and diagnosis"? What exactly is involved in this "full examination and diagnosis"? I am sure it is highly invasive.

Imagine if you were a young athlete being referred to this "special committee" to have your gender questioned. How would you feel?

Policies like this have no place in athletics.

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This post is related to an ongoing story:

• Caster Semenya

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There are 2 comments on this post. Join the discussion!

kristenW says:

%u201CDespite the well documented sorry history of the medicalization of women, it medicalizes the definition of womanhood one more time, taking the expression of embodied gender identity out of the hands of the very humans involved, and setting up many other young people for the devastating treatment that Caster Semenya experienced. Moreover, it flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence of the tremendous homonal variability among humans.

I will pursue a two-track strategy, while I am a high performance competitor I will abide by whatever policy is established, but as a human rights activist/educator I will join with others who believe that the Stockholm Consensus and the IOC/IAAF policies should be completely ABOLISHED and that anyone who self-identifies as a woman be allowed to compete as a woman.%u201D

Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 1:06pm EDT

robm says:

So the witch-hunt lives on. Have they not learned anything? Making up, much less thinking to actually enforce, such fine distinctions concerning gender and "appropriate" hormone levels is unfair to female athletes, and ultimately futile.

KristenW's comment exposes the root problem: "Moreover, it flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence of the tremendous hormonal variability among humans."

To which I'll only add, even one human alone can display tremendous variability over time. That ever so cagey hormone

Monday, April 18, 2011 at 2:42pm EDT

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