Emmanuelle Ducros 08:47, March 27, 2023

Every morning after the 8:30 am, Emmanuelle Ducros reveals to listeners her "Voyage en absurdie", from Monday to Thursday.

The International Athletics Federation made a surprise announcement last week. . Transgender people are now excluded from the female category for competitions, effective March 31. What does this mean?

From now on, a biological man claiming to be female, i.e. claiming that his social gender is different from his birth sex, will no longer be able to participate in athletics competitions in the female categories. This has been the case so far. Transgender athletes could do this by declaring that they were women by proving that their testosterone levels were below a certain level. A one-way question, since no trans man – i.e. a biological woman declaring herself male – ventures into the male sports categories. Proof that physical counters are not reset by declaring a gender identity and taking hormones.

Why change the rule?

Because there is a great concern in women's sport to see biological men declaring themselves women snatching all the podiums one by one to biologically female athletes. This is very unfair to biologically female athletes. Records, performances, everything is skewed.

There is a strong debate

Do trans athletes who have experienced male puberty before declaring themselves female retain physical advantages over biological women? The development of waist and musculature is conditioned by male hormones at puberty. Hormone treatment afterwards or not. "For many, the evidence that trans women do not retain an advantage is insufficient," the athletics federation said.

It is the emergence of a political issue in sport...

In the name of the inclusion of trans people, can we trample on an important achievement for women, and which is far from obvious in a whole part of the world, that of playing competitive sport in good conditions and in a fair environment?

The international athletics federation takes a political position: "We have always believed that biology trumps gender and we will continue to review our regulations in this direction." Pushed to choose between "equity" and "inclusion", she says, she is "on the side of equity". We don't talk about sport. We talk about worldview.

Which is, in the current climate, quite courageous.

There is courage in speaking out in a debate where there are only blows to take. For trans rights activists, the Athletics Federation's decision is discrimination. Rules should conform to their way of seeing the world and confirm that a person is who they say they are and not what biology makes of them.

The debate is so delicate that the sports federations are unable to resolve it, they are moving forward in a piecemeal fashion, the Swimming Federation, for example, would like to create open categories for trans people. Others are stunned, caught between their desire to promote women's sport and the pressure of a handful of extremely aggressive trans activists, who ask them to forget that biology is a fact that concerns 99.9% of the population. To give in is to always make the same victims, the women.