Scientific Programme
Plenary Session
PS-PL01 - DSD- and trans-athletes in the female category: scientific and ethical controversies
Date: 02.07.2025, Time: 17:45 - 19:00, Session Room: Anfiteatro
Description
The eligibility of DSD (Differences of Sexual Development)- and trans-athletes in the female category in elite sports is a controversial issue and raises fundamental questions of scientific and ethical kinds. The scientific questions relate among other things to the impact of elevated testosterone levels in the development and execution of athletic performance in various sports, and the ethical questions concern the tension between the right of individuals to take part according to their legal gender and the right of all athletes to fair competition in their category. The underlying general questions concern the meaning and function of categorizing athletes in sports, and competition fairness. In this session, two international experts, Professor of Sport and Exercise Science Yannis Pitsiladis and bioethicist and Professor Silvia Camporesi, address the issue from complementary perspectives. Dr. Pitsiladis examines the justification in some sports for deeming transgender women athletes ineligible in the female class, and Dr. Camporesi discusses similar questions in the case of DSD athletes. These are topical issues that should be of interest to the broad sport science community.
Chair(s)
Sigmund Loland
The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Professor
Norway
Speaker A
Yannis Pitsiladis
Hong Kong Baptist University, School of Sport and Health Sciences
Hong Kong
Read CVECSS Rimini 2025: PS-PL01
Ban or Integrate Transgender Women in Elite Sport?
The issue of whether large International Federations (IFs) like the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), World Rugby and World Athletics (WA) are justified in deeming transgender women athletes ineligible for the female category after assigned male at-birth-puberty is complex. The positions of these IFs is contrary to the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) “Framework on fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations”. The debate over the inclusion of transgender women athletes in womens sports extends beyond science to encompass ethical and social dimensions. While international federations eligibility criteria often emphasize fairness and concerns about potential retained physical advantages, the IOC’s framework focuses on inclusion and respect for human rights. Both perspectives hold valid points, and addressing this complex issue requires a balanced approach that adapts to new scientific insights and evolving societal values. Ultimately, the goal of my presentation is not to resolve the debate or take sides but to promote thoughtful dialogue, inspire research avenues, and initiate empathy to create a sporting environment that is both fair and inclusive to both transgender and cisgender women athletes.
Speaker B
Silvia Camporesi
KU Leuven, Dept. of Public Health and Primary Care Centre for Biomedical Ethics & Law
Belgium
Read CVECSS Rimini 2025: PS-PL01
When is it fair to be a sportswoman?
At the recent 2024 Paris Olympics, controversy engulfed the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. The International Boxing Association barred her from competition on grounds that she had failed their own regulations for competing in the female category, while the International Olympic Committee allowed her to compete, referring to their 2021 Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations. When is it fair to for a woman to compete in the female category? Questions pertaining to the eligibility of female athletes to compete are not new questions. Several forms of sex testing took their respective turns in the decades following the second World War, until sex testing was abandoned in the late 1990s by IOC and international sports federation. After a brief interval, sex testing re-surfaced, under a different form (that of ‘Hyperandrogenism Regulations) following the case of South African runner Caster Semenya, whose gold medal at the 2009 World Championship in Berlin ignited a controversy over an ‘unfair advantage’ derived by naturally high testosterone levels which, fifteen years later, is still ongoing. Since then, the WA Hyperandrogenism Regulations (which in 2018 changed their name to “Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification for Athlete with Differences of Sexual Development, DSD”) which restrict the participation of female athletes with high endogenous testosterone levels, have undergone multiple iterations (with a progressive lowering of the limits of testosterone levels allowed to compete in the female category), have been the subject of two appeals to the Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS) (in 2015 and 2019), and two at the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) (2023, and 2024), one of which still ongoing at the time of writing. In this keynote talk, I historically contextualise and critically evaluate, from the point of view of ethics and international sports law, the regulations that have been enacted to restrict participation of female athletes, and address the following questions: What do we mean by ‘unfair advantage’ in competition? Who should decide, and on the basis of which criteria and which evidence, when natural levels of endogenous testosterone are unfair in competition? These questions, which historically have been situated within the purview of IOC and sports governing bodies only, are now -for the first time in history - being discussed at the European Court for Human Rights, signaling a significant opening up of public scrutiny over a terrain which has traditionally been sports-only. The lid on the “black box” of sports governance is, cautiously, being opened. In this paper I do not provide straightforward answers but set out to provide conceptual clarity in a complex and controversial terrain, which has the potential for great impact well beyond the world of sport.