Gender can’t trump biology: We’ll always put fairness first, says Sebastian Coe

As several governing sporting bodies reassess their policies on trans athletes, World Athletics boss Sebastian Coe says fairness should come first.

World Athletics boss Sebastian Coe says rules on trans athletes aren’t set in stone

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe says his organisation’s policy on transgender women athletes is not “set in tablets of stone” and on his watch “if there is a conflict between fairness and inclusion in the female category, we will always choose fairness”.

Several world sporting bodies are currently reassessing their guidelines relating to elite trans women athletes heading towards the Paris Olympics and The Weekend Australian understands some are considering an outright ban on trans women in the female category.

In an exclusive interview Coe, who has been vocal on maintaining the “integrity” of women’s sport, said World Athletics’ transgender regulations, like their differences of sexual development (DSD) policy, is constantly in review.

In 2019, World Athletics reduced the transgender testosterone limit from 10 nanomoles to five nanomoles — to apply a consistent standard to both DSD and transgender athletes in the female category — and Coe said the policy would be reviewed again if “fairness” was at risk.

“Where I see it from my sport, I see it as the genesis of development here … nothing is cast in tablets of stone here … and there are no perfect solutions. We don‘t believe in a world of optimality here,” Coe said. “What we’ve tried to do is to create a path so that we’re not telling these athletes that they cannot compete, we’re just trying to find a solution that creates a more level playing field. If, in the fullness of time, the science shows that we haven’t been able to achieve that (we will review the policy).

“I mean, if you look at the distances that we chose around DSD, it’s pretty clear to me that we have achieved what we set out to do, particularly in the 800m and the 1500m, but the problem hasn’t just suddenly gone away.

“We will continually review that and transgender is exactly the same. But the issue for me is, it is very clear. I have a responsibility as the elected president of World Athletics to create, as well as I possibly can, a level playing field and protect the integrity of female sports.”

On Wednesday US trans woman swimmer Lia Thomas confirmed she was aiming to attempt to qualify for the Paris Olympics. Thomas said: “Trans women competing in women’s sports does not threaten women’s sports as a whole”.

After she flagged her Olympic bid, Australian Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus was asked about the issue and called on world governing body FINA to take fairness into account when developing inclusion policies for elite swimming.

World renowned South African sports scientist Ross Tucker, who helped World Rugby develop the policy that banned trans women players at the elite level, told The New York Times this week: “Lia Thomas is the manifestation of the scientific evidence. The reduction in testosterone did not remove her biological advantage.”

For Thomas to compete at the NCAA swim championships in March — where she won the 500 yards event — she had to reduce her testosterone levels to 10 nanomoles for at least 12 months. She said she had taken testosterone blockers and oestrogen since 2019, when she was swimming on the University of Pennsylvania men’s swim team.

As for athletics, Coe maintains that the World Athletics body will always prioritise the integrity of women’s sport above inclusion.

“But the broad principle for me is an immutable one and really it is about the integrity of female competition,” Coe said.

“That is a foundation stone in our sport. I‘ve said this and Professor Ross Tucker and many others have said it; that gender cannot trump biology.

“We don‘t have the luxury of allowing that to take place. We have two classifications. We have age and we have gender.

“The female category is an important one, and if you don‘t have it, then you don’t have females. It’s as simple as that, because once a male athlete is passed through puberty, then that testosterone is the key determinant of performance and that performance gap will always remain.

“So if we‘re saying that gender cannot trump biology, I think the second principle that … has always been clear for me, and that is that if there is a conflict between fairness and inclusion in the female category, we will always choose fairness.”

Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and an accomplished businessman and politician who has been in charge of World Athletics since 2015, has been unafraid to tackle challenging issues in sport head-on, including banning Russia for systemic doping and placing restrictions on DSD athletes following Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya’s sensational rise.

World Athletics rules, which took effect in 2019, cap the testosterone levels of DSD athletes such as Semenya in events from the 400m to the 1500m.

“I consistently relish the challenge because these are issues, if I’m being blunt, that have been in the in-tray of far too many sports organisations for far too long,” he said.

“And the fact that we were prepared from 2015 onwards, not just to be a passenger in these discussions, but to lead from the front has caused some fault lines and some stresses within and without the organisation. But it is the right thing to be doing. I cut my teeth in politics, and as they say, if you want a friend, get a dog.”

World Athletics has ruled that Semenya — and other female athletes with hyper-androgenism — have to take hormones to lower her testosterone levels.

Semenya has previously described her high testosterone levels as a genetic gift, but because of her refusal to lower her natural testosterone she has been barred from running in the 800m since 2019.

In an interview with HBO Real Sports this week, Semenya said she tried taking testosterone-lowering medication, but it was like “stabbing yourself with a knife” and “tortured” her.

When asked to respond to this, Coe said the DSD issue was a “global challenge”.

“Look, first of all, the regulations are here to stay and they have been upheld on two separate occasions, once in the Court of Arbitration, and a resisted appeal, and also in the Swiss federal court, which was a jurisdictional thing,” Coe said.

“So as far as we‘re concerned, we feel very strongly a) the regulations are here to stay and b) that it is the responsibility, the leadership of any sport to defend the female category.”

Meanwhile British trans cyclist Emily Bridges still holds hope of competing at an elite level one day after her dream to qualify for the Commonwealth Games was quashed by cycling authorities. The 21-year-old was stopped from competing in her first elite women‘s race in April by cycling’s world governing body, the UCI.

Bridges in a recent interview with DIVA magazine said she “does not have any advantage” over her competitors and can prove it with data.

British Cycling’s transgender regulations — which have now been suspended pending a review — did require riders to have had testosterone levels below five nanomoles per litre for a 12-month period prior to competition. Bridges satisfied this requirement.

But as The Weekend Australian understands, some sporting bodies are considering the abolition of testosterone levels in the elite categories and narrowing down qualification to just the gender competitors were born with.

Coe says, in his sport, he will always try to find a “navigable” route.

“I want to be sensitive about this, it’s always been a guiding principle for me to find a navigable route, if at all possible, through an issue,” he said.

“And let me give you a parallel example. We chose in being tough with Russia and in suspending the federation and suspending their athletes, we then settled upon a construct which allowed us to separate the clean athletes from the tainted system. We created the authorised neutral athletes.

“I don‘t naturally come into the sport lightly undertaking decisions to suspend or ban athletes from competition. I will always try to find a navigable route through. And I think the maintenance of lower levels of testosterone … (is) one of those navigable routes through. But the immutable principle is the integrity of female sport. And if when push comes to shove, if there is a conflict between fairness and inclusion, we will always fall down on the side of things (of fairness).”

Coe said the world of elite sport, where rules must be placed on trans women athletes, contrasted fiercely with the general population.

“I ate at a restaurant last night, and if the person that served my food last night was a male and in six months time as a female, it makes not a jot a difference to me. I’m socially liberal. I really don’t care,” Coe said.

“But in sport it’s different. It is. It fundamentally alters the performance. If I’ve got a colleague here who transitions, it makes not a jot of difference to me. They maintain their job. Whatever gender, you know, that they decide to assign to, but it’s not the same in sport and I think that, we need to recognise that there is a unique difference in sport.

“Testosterone is the key determinant. And if you are, you know, once a boy passes through puberty … look, my daughters were routinely at the age of 11 or 12 kicking butt big time against boys in sprinting and in whatever they were choosing to do.

“Puberty does mean that that gap opens and that is the difference between male and female competition. And we have to recognise that, that’s why gender cannot trump biology.”