The Patriot Post® · IOC Foolishly Punts on 'Transgender' Qualifiers

As the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing is slated to start in February, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has rewritten the framework regarding gender dysphoric athletes. The IOC wants to ensure the new criteria “does not systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations.” In other words, it’s caved to the new gender ideology.

Up to this point, gender dysphoric athletes have had to undergo medical inspections and genital checks. They also could not exceed a certain level of testosterone. It would be news to genuine scientists, but it’s apparently no longer the case that testosterone levels affect strength, endurance, or quality of performance, as the new IOC framework gets rid of that.

Despite making it clear that it thinks gender dysphoric athletes should be permitted to participate with their preferred gender, the IOC foisted the final decision on eligibility on the international governing bodies for each sport.

Individual governing bodies making that determination will be “encouraged” to develop competition standards to exclude athletes who demonstrate three core disqualifiers: 1) an “unfair, disproportionate competitive advantage”; 2) pose a risk to the physical safety of other athletes; or 3) claim a gender identity with the objective of entering a competition at a specific category.

The evidence for disqualification must be data-based.

There’s a lot wrong with the IOC allowing gender dysphoric athletes to compete with those of the opposite biological sex. Gender ideology is a very Western idea, and it goes without saying that most other countries are not only very much against “transgenderism” but would raise cain if their athletes were beaten by a “transgender” individual, especially if a medal was involved.

Furthermore, countries will surely use these new guidelines as a way to cheat. It isn’t fair for men to compete in women’s sports, especially when a country’s honor and a medal are on the line. “Leaving it up to governing bodies” to determine eligibility is a slippery slope and definitely vulnerable to interpretation (i.e., bending the rules).

Speaking of bending the rules, China and Russia have already gotten in trouble for doing just that. Russia isn’t even allowed to compete under its own flag because of the doping scandal several Olympics ago. Allowing countries to create their own standards for fair competition seems like a recipe for disaster. There is a reason the IOC even exists. It’s supposed to set the rules to ensure impartiality or country allegiance. Punting guidelines to individual countries is not only cowardly, it implies that maybe the IOC doesn’t have a consensus about whether gender dysphoric people have these rights in the first place.

Those hypothetical dissenters would be correct.

This is where women athletes need to speak up and ignore the pushback that comes with standing up to the transgender agenda. It’s their part of the competition that’s primarily at stake. Their competitors should be biological women, not gender-confused men who definitely do have an “unfair, disproportionate competitive advantage.”