World Athletics’ transgender regulations see scientific rigour give way to a fudge

D uring a star-spangled athletics career, Sebastian Coe rarely snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The most famous exception came at the Olympic 800m final in Moscow where he made so many tactical missteps that his father and coach, Peter, used a coarse four-letter word to describe his run. However this weekend Lord Coe became reacquainted with similar levels of opprobrium after World Athletics’ proposed solution to sport’s most divisive issue became public.

For months, as the World Athletics president Coe has strongly hinted that trans women and athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD), who are 46 XY with male testes but were reported female at birth, should only compete in female sport if the science shows it is fair. “Biology trumps identity,” he said in the summer. “If we ever get pushed into a corner to that point where we’re making a judgment about fairness or inclusion, I will always fall down on the side of fairness.” Just in case there was any doubt, Coe also promised to “be guided by the science”, before adding: “Fairness is non-negotiable.”

Yet a curious feat of alchemy takes place when you read World Athletics’ proposed new DSD and transgender regulations, as scientific rigour gives way to a fudge worthy of a master confectioner. There is certainly science in the document and, as Coe often points out, no international federation has studied this issue more closely. In one section, World Athletics stresses that trans women and athletes with a DSD “retain an advantage in muscle mass, volume and strength over cis women after 12 months” of hormone treatment – and that “limited experimental data” suggests the advantages continue after that. In another it notes male puberty leads to anatomical