The simple way to protect women’s sport at the Olympics

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) needs to find some far better answers to the transgender question if it is to restore its credibility in eyes of those who care about women’s sport. We might not have the spectacle of Laurel Hubbard – the transgender weightlifter who displaced a woman from the last games in Tokyo – but the debate is far from settled.

Some potential transgender competitors, such as the American swimmer Lia Thomas or British cyclist Emily Bridges, were excluded ahead of the Games in Paris by their own governing bodies. There was no place for them there. That is a good thing. Nobody is excluding Thomas, Bridges or any other male transsexual from competing altogether; rather the rules quite rightly prevent them from competing in categories reserved for the female sex.

But, nevertheless, a row has blown up over two boxers, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan, who – according to the president of the International Boxing Association (IBA) – have taken DNA tests that ‘proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded from the [women’s] sports events’.