World Athletics approves one-off gender eligibility test for athletes wishing to compete in women’s category

In March 2023, World Athletics banned transgender athletes who had gone through male puberty from competing in the female category in international competition.

Last month, however, a World Athletics working group recommended a revision to eligibility regulations for male-to-female trans athletes, on the basis of fresh evidence which it said shows there is a “significant performance gap before the onset of puberty”.

The current rules for DSD athletes, meanwhile, require them to reduce their testosterone levels below 2.5 nmol/L for at least six months to compete in any female category event internationally.

World Athletics will now merge regulations for both DSD and transgender athletes after the working group said new evidence showed testosterone suppression “can only ever partly mitigate the overall male advantage in the sport of athletics”.

World Athletics said the pre-clearance SRY test provider, process and timeline will be agreed “over the next few weeks”.

Coe made “protecting” eligibility of the women’s category a key component of his bid to be elected International Olympic Committee president.

However, Coe finished third in the IOC election earlier this month as Kirsty Coventry won 49 of the 97 available votes to become the first female and African president.

Coe said on Tuesday: “It’s important to do it because it maintains everything that we’ve been talking about, and particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it.

“We feel this is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”