Women’s Human Rights Campaign Seeks Contact from Women Impacted by International Olympic Committee’s Policy Allowing Men’s Participation in Women’s Competitions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jo Brew, Coordinator, Women’s

Human Rights Campaign

Email: [email protected]

Women’s Human Rights Campaign Seeks Contact from Women Impacted by International Olympic Committee’s Policy Allowing Men’s Participation in Women’s Competitions

Outrage is growing over the participation of men competing in Olympic women’s events on the basis of their so-called “gender identity,” and the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (WHRC) has been exploring legal options to challenge the discriminatory, unscientific, and illogical rules adopted by the International Olympics Committee (IOC) that have allowed this travesty to occur.

A ‘consensus’ decision adopted by the International Olympics Committee in 2015 permits men to participate in women’s competitions under extremely unscientific conditions, resulting in outrageous discrimination against women and girls.

The IOC’s policy permits anyone who declares their “gender identity” as female to be able to participate in women’s sports, i.e., sports that are supposed to be separated by sex, under certain conditions. The IOC’s policy continues to perpetuate an outrageously unfair policy towards women and girls by allowing any male individual to participate in female sports if:

  1. The athlete has declared that his gender identity is female. The declaration cannot be changed, for sporting purposes, for a minimum of four years.
  2. The athlete has demonstrated that his total testosterone level in serum has been below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to his first competition.

This flies in the face of all available science that conclusively proves the range of testosterone in females is between 0.12 and 1.79 nmol/l, while men’s are typically between 7.7 to 29.4 nmol/l. In complete denial of the basic human rights of women and girls, the IOC policy permits individuals with testosterone in the typical male range (10 nmol being the lower end for male individuals) to compete as women, while female individuals have testosterone nearly 10 times lesser. This policy of the IOC is also in complete contradiction to the policies adopted by the IAAF, which recognizes (insufficiently) the extreme advantage conferred by testosterone.

“The issue of the unscientific testosterone limit, is of course, just one of the many issues plaguing this ridiculous policy,” said Jo Brew, coordinator of the WHRC. “Substantial scientific evidence exists that the physical advantages held by men over women are not due to testosterone alone. More damningly, all the available scientific evidence that the committee claimed to review, at the time this dangerous policy was adopted, did not support the conclusion that allowing men with a meagre reduction of testosterone would not eviscerate competition in female sports. The IOC has adopted a decision that is costing all women and girls interested in sports, treating them as collateral damage to be dismissed.”

“WHRC is outraged and disturbed by the flagrant disregard for the very basic human rights of women and girls in the IOC’s decision,” said Linda Louis[KD1] , a spokesperson for WHRC. “WHRC has ascertained that the IOC’s misogynistic policy, drafted in bullish and dismissive disregard for the fair competition of women and girls, may be able to be challenged in the Court of Arbitration of Sport.” WHRC invites women who have been directly impacted to contact us if they are interested in taking legal action against this indefensible policy.