Andrew Sinclair, Deputy Director of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, writes on the introduction of mandatory genetic testing of women athletes by World Athletics.
World Athletics has introduced a new policy mandating genetic testing for all women athletes competing at elite levels. This initiative seeks to detect the SRY gene via a simple blood test or cheek swab. Yet the implications of this policy are anything but simple. The requirement is limited to women, effectively exposing their most private medical information to sports authorities and opening the door to serious ethical, privacy and psychological consequences.
World Athletics continually relitigates its regulations impacting some elite women athletes with innate variations of sex characteristics, in the context of a moral panic about participation in sport by trans people, a different population.
In this article in the American Journal of Bioethics, Dr Carpenter asks if it is ever acceptable to reclassify someone out of their sex determined and classified at birth without their consent. He proposes that women athletes should always be able to compete, without preconditions, in their birth-observed, birth-assigned sex.
As the Paris Olympics unfolds, the athletics competition has commenced. However, there are at least two athletes who won’t be participating because their natural bodies do not meet World Athletics’ standards.
We need to speak up about hateful rhetoric about women Olympic athletes, competing in Paris, who are purported to have innate variations of sex characteristics.
Caster Semenya, born a woman, raised a woman, who has demonstrated nothing but hard-earned excellence in her field is harmed by irresponsible reporting.
IHRA has made a formal submission to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in response to a questionnaire seeking information to fulfil its mandate in Human Rights Council resolution 40/5 on the elimination of discrimination against women and girls in sport.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has published an essential new background note on human rights violations against intersex people.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport has issued a press release outlining a majority decision against Caster Semenya and Athletics South Africa in their case with the IAAF. We respond to this decision.
1 May 2019
Acknowledgement of Country
Our Australian staff and board live and work on First Nations lands. We recognise that sovereignty over this land was never ceded and that this always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We acknowledge the continued connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to land, waterways and community and pay our respects to all First Nations people.
Join our mailing list
Sign up to the InterAction mailing list. We use MailChimp so you stay in charge of your subscription.
InterAction for Health and Human Rights Bundjalung Jagun, PO Box 92, The Channon, New South Wales, 2480, Australia
