Reinforcing its stringent policy on transgender participation, athletics' governing body announced this week that it will require a once-in-a-lifetime cheek swab or blood test to detect the presence of the SRY gene for all female competitors at international championships, starting this September.
"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 told Agence France-Presse.
Athletes hoping to compete in the women's category at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo will have to comply with the new protocol, enforced by member federations. The genetic test will determine the presence or absence of the Sex-determining Region Y gene—a gene responsible for initiating male sex development. The test helps identify biological sex at the genetic level.
This methodology was employed at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics; however, the International Olympic Committee later discontinued gender verification at the Games as the SRY gene testing may be discriminatory against women with disorders of sexual development, such as intersex disorders. However, World Athletics assured that the test is "the SRY test is extremely accurate and the risk of false negative or positive is extremely unlikely."
The federation furthered that athletes may contest the results through the Court of Arbitration for Sport and stressed that those who outright refuse to test will be barred from competing in world ranking events but may participate in alternative and non-ranked competitions.
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