Former Olympian Sharron Davies has issued a powerful demand to the International Olympic Committee, insisting that its anticipated ban on transgender athletes must also encompass competitors with Differences in Sexual Development (DSD), which she describes as the ‘more important’ issue.
A New Union for Female Sport
Davies made her declaration on Tuesday while launching the Women’s Sports Union alongside sailing legend Tracy Edwards. The new organisation aims to ‘promote and protect’ female sport, offering legal support to athletes from the grassroots level upwards. Davies expressed concern that the complex debate around DSD athletes could be overshadowed by political wrangling.
It is widely believed the IOC is moving closer to implementing a blanket ban on transgender athletes next year. This would prevent a repeat of the situation at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, where weightlifter Laurel Hubbard competed. However, the path forward for DSD athletes—those with male chromosomes who were raised female—remains significantly less clear.
The Controversy at Paris 2024
The existing IOC framework, which relies on the gender marker in an athlete’s passport, led to major controversy at the recent Paris Games. Algeria's Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan secured boxing gold medals despite having been disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for reportedly failing gender eligibility tests.
This incident echoes the long-running legal dispute between World Athletics and Caster Semenya, the two-time Olympic 800m champion. New IOC president Kirsty Coventry was elected on a platform to protect the female category, but internal opposition to policy changes for DSD athletes is expected to be fiercer than for trans rules.
The Scale of the DSD Issue
Citing a World Athletics study, Davies revealed the extent of the issue to Daily Mail Sport. The study found that between 2000 and 2023, 50-60 DSD athletes occupied 135 places in elite international finals. "It is almost more important, really," Davies stated. "Their biggest problem was DSD athletes, it wasn't trans athletes."
She went further, alleging that some nations are deliberately exploiting this situation. "This is a very lucrative thing, winning a gold medal. I was even told that East German doctors were recruited by nations to go and find DSD athletes, and that's well known inside the sporting world."
Davies is calling for the IOC to resume sex testing via cheek swabs, a programme it halted in 1999. "Women's sport has been under assault for a very long time," she argued. "The sensible thing is to create an open category where everyone can be whoever they want to be and a female category."
Echoing this sentiment, Tracy Edwards pointed to an April Supreme Court ruling that defined ‘sex’ as biological sex at birth. "There are still 30 plus sports in England that are not adhering to this definition," Edwards said. "The tide may be turning, but there is a long, long way to go."
