World Athletics’ trans policy isn’t scientific

This week it was revealed in the Telegraph that World Athletics is engaged in a confidential consultation with national governing bodies over the question of whether transwomen should be allowed to compete in the female category.  

World Athletics’ current rules allow males to compete in the female category if their legal sex is female and they have held their serum testosterone levels below 5 nMol/l for 12 months. Their ‘preferred option’ in the consultation is to change the acceptable testosterone level to 2.5 nMol/l for 24 months. 

Lord Coe, president of World Athletics, announced in November that athletics will ‘follow the science’ – but how scientific is this proposal? 

We all know that the scientific method dictates that theories must be backed by data. But this is not the only scientific precept. Another crucial scientific principle is ‘Occam’s razor’, also known as the principle of parsimony. This asserts that when faced with two competing explanations of the same facts, you should choose the simplest explanation.