C. E. Lord OBE

Sport must safeguard participants and ensure equity and fairness, but this must be done based on science and fact and not as a kneejerk reaction to political or cultural pressure.

Today I have written to Kirsty Coventry, President of the International Olympic Committee, whom I deeply admire and whose election I celebrated just over a year ago, to set out my concerns about the IOC’s newly announced policy on eligibility for the women’s category in Olympic sport. In that message I have said, clearly and respectfully, that while sport governing bodies have a duty to safeguard participants and ensure fairness, that duty must be exercised on the basis of evidence, science, and proportionality, not as a kneejerk response to political or cultural pressure. Yet this policy marks a profound and troubling shift in the governance of sport. Framed as a necessary step to protect fairness, it instead risks entrenching exclusion, reviving discredited approaches to sex testing, and undermining the very principles the Olympic Movement claims to uphold. At a moment that calls for nuance, evidence, and careful judgment, the IOC has reached for a blunt instrument.

I have argued that fairness cannot be reduced to a single biological test, nor imposed through a one-size-fits-all rule across vastly different disciplines. The policy adopts a blunt approach to complex questions of biology and performance, relies on contested scientific assumptions, and reintroduces forms of sex testing that sport itself has previously moved away from. Most troublingly, it excludes a group of athletes, particularly women with differences of sex development, on the basis of innate characteristics over which they have no control. These are not cheats or rule-breakers, but competitors whose only “offence” is to possess natural variations that confer advantage, just as countless elite athletes do. We celebrate those advantages in some, yet penalise them in others. That is not fairness. It is inconsistency dressed up as principle.

I have written because this matters, not just for elite Olympic competition, but for the wider sporting ecosystem. The IOC sets the tone globally. Policies adopted at the top level inevitably cascade down into national, amateur, and grassroots sport, just as we have seen already in policies adopted by most British sport governing bodies. If we get this wrong, the consequences will be felt far beyond the Olympic Games, affecting who feels able to participate, who is welcomed, and who is excluded. That is why I believe this policy must be challenged, and why I have urged the IOC to pause, reflect, and reconsider.

I write today, in my personal rather than any official capacity, in response to the International Olympic Committee’s newly announced policy on eligibility for the women’s category at Olympic Games and competitions. I do so as someone who has spent much of my professional life working in governance, including senior roles within aquatics, basketball, cricket and football in Great Britain, and who believes deeply in both the integrity of competition and the fundamental dignity of those who participate in it. I have also been a longstanding advocate for women’s and girls’ sport and helped lead the bid to bring the International Working Group on Women’s Sport back to GB for 2022-2026. 

Let me begin with a point of agreement. We both concur that sport governing bodies must safeguard all participants and ensure fairness and equity within their disciplines. That is not in dispute. But such duties must be discharged in a manner that is grounded in robust evidence, proportionate in its application, and consistent with the fundamental rights and dignity of athletes. Policies of this kind must be rooted in fact and science, not shaped primarily by political or cultural pressure, however intense those pressures may be.

It is against that standard that I, and many others, find the IOC’s new policy deeply troubling.

First, the adoption of a single, overarching eligibility rule, grounded in genetic screening and applied across a wide range of sports, appears to disregard the principle that fairness in sport is inherently sport specific. The physiological and psychological attributes that confer advantage vary enormously between disciplines. A blanket approach risks oversimplification of complex biological realities and, in doing so, undermines the very fairness it seeks to protect.

Secondly, the reliance on genetic testing, including the use of SRY gene screening as a determinative criterion, raises profound scientific, ethical, and practical concerns. The science in this area is far from settled. There is no universal consensus that such markers alone can reliably determine competitive advantage across all sports. To adopt a policy of such consequence on the basis of contested or incomplete evidence risks institutionalising error on a global scale.

Thirdly, and of particular concern, are the implications for athletes with differences of sex development. The policy, in effect, excludes individuals – overwhelmingly women – from competition in the female category on the basis of innate biological characteristics over which they have no control. In doing so, it creates a category of athletes who are, through no fault of their own, deemed ineligible to compete in the category in which they have lived, trained, and often excelled.

This strikes me as fundamentally unjust.

Sport has always recognised, indeed celebrated, natural variation. Elite athletes are, almost by definition, those who possess unusual or exceptional physical attributes. Michael Phelps was not excluded from competition because of his extraordinary wingspan, unusually large hands and feet, or physiological traits that conferred significant competitive advantage. On the contrary, those attributes were recognised as part of what made him exceptional.

Why, then, do we treat athletes such as Caster Semenya, Imane Khelif, or Lin Yu-ting differently? Their attributes, too, are innate. They are not the product of artifice or unfair manipulation, but of natural biological diversity. To exclude them on that basis is not to level the playing field, but to redraw it in a way that disadvantages a small and already marginalised group of athletes, many of whom are women of colour from the Global South.

Fourthly, the policy raises serious concerns in relation to privacy, dignity, and safeguarding. Mandatory genetic testing, even if presented as minimally intrusive, engages deeply personal aspects of an individual’s identity and medical history. The potential for stigma, psychological harm, and the unintended disclosure of sensitive information is real and significant. These risks are not hypothetical; they are borne out by the history of sex testing in sport, a history which the IOC itself previously recognised as problematic and ultimately abandoned.

Fifthly, there are substantial legal questions. Policies that differentiate on the basis of sex characteristics, genetic traits, or gender identity must meet the tests of necessity and proportionality. It is far from clear that a blanket exclusion, applied across multiple disciplines without clear, sport-specific evidence of advantage, can meet those tests. The risk of legal challenge, and of adverse findings, is therefore considerable.

Finally, there is a broader concern about process and trust. Policies of this magnitude, affecting the lives and careers of athletes across the world, require the highest standards of transparency, consultation, and evidence-based reasoning. It is not yet clear that those standards have been met and that is especially troubling as, although your policy only relates to Olympic events, it will set a standard which will be followed across the world leading to trans and DSD athletes being excluded not just from elite competitions, but all organised and amateur sport.

None of this is to deny the complexity of the issues involved. Balancing inclusion, fairness, and safety in sport is not straightforward. Reasonable people may disagree. But it is precisely because of that complexity that the response must be careful, nuanced, and grounded in evidence.

The Olympic Movement has long stood for the values of excellence, respect, and friendship. Respect, in particular, demands that we approach difference not with exclusion, but with understanding; not with blunt instruments, but with careful judgment.

I therefore urge the International Olympic Committee to pause, to reflect, and to engage further with athletes, scientists, medical experts, human rights specialists and, in particular trans and DSD athletes themselves, both elite and grassroots, who are committed to their sports and want to have the opportunity to participate. A policy that commands confidence must be one that is demonstrably fair, scientifically credible, legally robust, and humane in its application.

At present, I fear that this policy falls short of that standard. I hope the IOC Executive Board will reconsider its position.

I know that my views on this subject will not be welcomed by all. Indeed there are some who have grotesquely characterised my support for trans inclusion in sport as being at odds with my longstanding and deeply held advocacy for women’s sport. I fear that, unless some people speak up and challenge the pernicious culture war of which this agenda is part, then a small community of trans and DSD sportspeople will be excluded forever from the games and disciplines that they love, and that would be fundamentally wrong and deeply sad. The UK’s former Sport Council used to have as its strapline “Sport for All”. Nowadays, it appears that it is only sport for those who can pass a genetic test.

C. E. Lord OBE is the City of London’s Lead Member for Sport. They previously chaired the Amateur Swimming Association (now Swim England) and served on the boards of the British Basketball League and Middlesex County Cricket Club and the Inclusion Advisory Board of the Football Association as well as chairing the Inclusion Advisory Group of the London FA. They also were a member of the steering group for the UK’s successful bid to host the International Working Group on Women and Sport.