Has the International Olympic Committee finally turned the corner on biological reality? There’s at least a strong hope in the newly elected president of the IOC, Kirsty Coventry, that the IOC will save women’s sports by upholding common sense and scientific fact over lies and delusions. As Coventry vowed in June, “We should make the effort to place emphasis on the protection of the female category.”
I’ll second that, and not only for the sake of safety and fairness, but also for the sake of female existence.
The Telegraph broke the news of the upcoming policy change on X: “Transgender athletes are to be banned from female competition at the Olympics following a review of evidence about the sporting advantages of being born male.” They haven’t banned men pretending to be women yet, but they are heading in that direction. Coventry told Telegraph Sport that she supports a blanket ban. After she won the presidency back in March, she commissioned a review that analyzed the permanent physical advantages of being born male.
The committee’s medical and scientific director, Dr Jane Thornton, last week presented the initial findings of a science-based review into transgender athletes to IOC members at a meeting in Lausanne. “It was a very scientific, factual, and unemotional presentation which quite clearly laid out the evidence,” one source from the IOC committee stated. I’m not sure what “unemotional” had to do with a fact-finding mission. Still, strangely, some believe that how a person feels is all the “proof” you need to claim you are a woman.
We can take a wild guess at what the review found. However, the Telegraph reported, “Although no final decision has been made, the update to IOC members reportedly stated that scientific evidence showed there were physical advantages to being born male that remained even after reducing testosterone levels.” Anyone with one iota of common sense and who has observed thousands of years of historical precedent could have told them that without needing scientific evidence.
As it stands now, the IOC lets individual sports decide their own rules on the trans issue and allows so-called “trans women” (a.k.a. men) to compete against women with reduced testosterone levels, but that is officially set to change early next year. Some sports, such as swimming, have already instituted a ban on male athletes who have undergone puberty from competing in female competitions, but other sports, such as soccer, have not. Coventry stated that there was “unanimous” support for reaching an agreement on the best way to amend the policy.
I have a recommendation that is quite simple: no biological men in women’s sports, period. No matter what sport, no matter how long they’ve been “trans,” and no matter what DSDs (Disorders of Sexual Development) they may have. It’s not just about sports integrity; it’s about right and wrong.
That particular case of DSDs arose when Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won the gold medal in women’s boxing at the Paris 2024 Games. Khelif, who claimed to be born a woman, has never been verified to have DSD — a range of conditions where a person can have characteristics of both sexes that can appear at different points in their lives. Her family insists “she” was born and raised as a girl. The Times noted, “World Boxing, the new international boxing federation which has been recognised by the IOC since Paris, has now introduced mandatory sex testing and has said Khelif will not be able to compete in the female category until ‘she’ undergoes the test.” It seems the new policy is likely to cover this rare condition as well.
The ban is expected to come into full effect before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. This would prevent a clash with President Donald Trump, who has signed an executive order that prevents men pretending to be women from competing in female categories. Trump went so far as to say that he would deny visas for transgender athletes trying to compete in LA, and rightfully so. One would hope that it would go into effect even before that, for the Winter Games in Italy, for the sake of saving women the heartache and injustice of losing to a man.
The debate over fairness in women’s sports has intensified since the IOC abandoned its testosterone-based policy in 2021, claiming there should be “no presumption of advantage” for transgender-identifying males and urging international federations to determine eligibility independently. It is truly staggering that in our modern era of science and technology, this topic of two sexes even needs to be debated, let alone requiring scientific evidence for it. Science may bring knowledge, but it does not bring wisdom. God is the source of wisdom, which brings sound judgment and discretion. As it says in Proverbs 2:6, “For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.” The days are evil, dark, and deceptive, which should propel us all the more toward the Supreme source of wisdom and truth.
