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The World Athletics Council announced Wednesday that athletes wishing to compete in female categories at the World Championships are required to undergo a “once-in-a-lifetime test” for eligibility.
The test will be for the SRY gene, “a reliable proxy for determining biological sex” with a cheek swab or blood test, the organization said in a release.
“The philosophy that we hold dear in World Athletics is the protection and the promotion of the integrity of women’s sport. It is really important in a sport that is permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there is no biological glass ceiling. The test to confirm biological sex is a very important step in ensuring this is the case,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said.
“We are saying, at elite level, for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biologically female. It was always very clear to me and the World Athletics Council that gender cannot trump biology.”
The organization announced the potential test in March, when Coe said the testing was “necessary” to protect women’s sports.
The specific gene “provides instructions for making a protein called the sex-determining region Y protein. This protein is involved in male-typical sex development, which usually follows a certain pattern based on an individual’s chromosomes,” according to Medline Plus.
Coe, who was in the running to become the International Olympic Committee chief, said in November the Olympics needed a clear policy to protect female sports.
World Athletics, the governing body for track and field sports around the globe, tightened its regulations on trans athletes to exclude transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in the female category.
Since the organization decided on this testing months ago, the NCAA has faced calls to enact similar protocols. The NCAA changed its requirements on transgender athletes competing in female sports shortly after President Donald Trump signed an executive order.
Trump signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order in February to keep biological males from playing in girls and women’s sports. The NCAA said a “student-athlete assigned male at birth may not compete on a women’s team.”
The previous policy, which had been in place in 2010, allowed biological males to compete in the women’s category after undergoing at least one year of testosterone suppression treatment.
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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