Why the biggest threat to women's sport isn't testosterone

Sky News AU

4 hours ago

We've seen it play out repeatedly. If you dare to say biological men don't belong in women's sports then prepare for the pile on.
If you speak a truth that many quietly acknowledge but hesitate to voice, you risk being labelled a bigot and transphobic much like author JK Rowling.
The biggest threat to women's sport isn't testosterone.
It's cowardice.
And no 'authority' exemplifies that better than the International Olympic Committee.
Newly leaked medical results show Olympic boxer Imane Khelif does in fact have the male chromosome XY.
Her Italian opponent Angela Carini didn't just lose her 2024 match - she was pummelled out of the boxing ring by Khelif.
It was deeply disturbing to watch.
Mid-fight at the Paris Olympics, Carini raised her hand and returned to her corner after a barrage of heavy punches from Khelif who landed a devastating right to her nose in the opening seconds.
Carini later said she quit to 'safeguard my life', while Ms Khelif went on to win gold.
Khelif failed a gender eligibility test a year earlier.
After the recently leaked test was conducted the IOC waved off any XY issue as nonsense and green-lit her anyway for female events in the Paris Games last year.
What it means is that the IOC, once revered as the bastion of sporting fairness, chose obfuscation and outright gaslighting.
These bureaucrats dismissed the XY results as 'not legitimate' and 'ad hoc' with a bizarre allegation that the test itself might have been a disinformation ruse by Russia.
Khelif, now 26, has always asserted she's female but the science revealed a more complicated picture and one the IOC chose to ignore.
You can well imagine them fretting at their Lausanne HQ in that glorious pocket of Switzerland, heaving with wealthy, leisurely folk and perched next to shimmering Lake Geneva.
Better to hit the Kremlin panic button when faced with a scientific result they didn't like rather than admit the truth.
Better to undermine themselves than risk offending someone.
What we have is an IOC which shows feint interest in protecting the rights of female athletes, which is surely 50 per cent of its mission in sport, the other being the rights of male athletes.
On its website, it states as mission one: 'The IOC's role is to encourage and support the promotion of ethics and good governance in sport as well as education of youth through sport and to dedicate its efforts to ensuring that, in sport, the spirit of fair play prevails and violence is banned.'
The spirit of fair play. Indeed.
Equity and safety are the two values sport, especially at a global level, is supposed to uphold.
We can have compassion for people with gender dysphoria. We can even debate the need for a separate trans category.
But none of that justifies letting biological males into women's sport.
World Boxing has this week done what common sense demands by announcing mandatory sex testing for all competitors.
A simple cheek swab will determine the presence of the SRY gene which identifies the Y chromosome.
No exceptions will be made and that includes Khelif, who won't be stepping into the ring in World Boxing events until she undergoes the required testing.
Actual science will now be used to separate men from women.
JK Rowling, who says she doesn't call for harassment or exclusion and is a passionate defender of female spaces, described it as a 'win for women'.
That's because unlike the Olympic brass, World Boxing has decided it won't let ideology punch women in the face under the guise of inclusion.
In the US state of Oregon, two high school track athletes Reese Eckard and Alexa Anderson delivered their own quiet protest.
After placing ahead of a trans athlete in the state high jump championships, they stepped off the podium rather than pose alongside someone who, until recently, competed in the boys' category.
Again, it wasn't hate.
It was a statement.
As Ms Anderson later said: 'In order to protect the integrity and fairness of girls' sports, we must stand up for what is right.'
Back home, Netball Victoria banned two transgender athletes from their League after video footage surfaced of one trans player colliding with and knocking a female opponent to the ground.
Not out of malice but simply due to size, strength and speed.
These are advantages that female players, even elite ones, can't realistically match when faced with male physiology.
This is a point that is expertly made by Sky News Senior Reporter Caroline Marcus in her excellent documentary 'Fair Game: The Fight for Women's Sport'.
The issue isn't to reject anyone's identity but to ensure that identity doesn't overshadow objective reality.
The science is settled.
The tide is turning.
The only thing that's been missing, until recently, is courage.
And the IOC needs to swallow a big serve of it.
Louise Roberts is a journalist and editor who has worked as a TV and radio commentator in Australia, the UK and the US. Louise is a winner of the Peter Ruehl Award for Outstanding Columnist in the NRMA Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism and has been shortlisted in other awards for her opinion work.