Copyright theage
Gratifying though it is that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has seen the light, finally countenancing an outright ban on trans-identifying males in women’s competition, forgive me if I resist much lavish praise. The bureaucrats in Lausanne could have resolved this absurdity 10 years ago. Instead, their championing of the feelings of a few noisy ideologues above the rights of countless women has created manifest injustice at successive summer Games, with Kiwi weightlifter Laurel Hubbard taking a female rival’s rightful place in Tokyo and two boxers with sex test results indicating male chromosomes winning gold medals in Paris – as women. Even if the right decision has been reached, a decade of dithering has enabled one of the worst scandals ever perpetrated in the name of sport. Forget the framing of a “transgender ban”. This is a ban on permitting male advantage in potentially lethal sports such as boxing, where men can punch more than twice as hard as women.
