Women across the globe have lost nearly 900 sports medals due to policies allowing biological males to compete against them, according to a new U.N. report from Reem Alsalem titled “Violence against women and girls in sports.”
“According to information received, by 30 March 2024, over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports,” said Alsalem.
“Male athletes have specific attributes considered advantageous in certain sports, such as strength and testosterone levels which are higher than the average range for females even before puberty, thereby resulting in the loss of fair opportunity,” he continued.
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Alsalem, the U.N.’s Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, detailed the significant damage done to women’s sports by nations allowing transgender-identifying males to compete against them.
Some nations and sports organizations try to mitigate the natural advantage biological males have in sports by requiring them to have lowered testosterone levels before they are allowed to compete against women.
Alsalem’s report explains that these requirements physically harm the biologically male athletes by making them suppress their natural bodily processes, and do little to remove the natural advantage that biologically male athletes have over women.
“Pharmaceutical testosterone suppression for genetically male athletes – and irrespective of how they identify – will not eliminate the set of comparative performance advantage they have already acquired,” said Alsalem.
“Testosterone levels deemed acceptable by any sporting body are at best not evidence-based, arbitrary, and asymmetrically favor males,” he continued.
Alsalem advised that the only real way to ensure fairness in women’s sports, and to ensure that women do not lose their opportunities to win in their own competitions, is to prevent biological males from competing against them regardless of their self-identification.
“To avoid the loss of a fair opportunity, males must not compete in the female categories of sport,” said Alsalem.
Allowing biological males in women’s sports poses a risk to more than just the women’s opportunity for athletic success.
Alsalem found that women forced to compete against biological males face an increased risk of physical harm.
“Female athletes are also be more vulnerable to sustaining serious physical injuries
when female-only sports spaces are opened to males,” said Alsalem.
He pointed to serious injuries in volleyball, basketball, and soccer, citing instances of broken bones, concussions, knocked-out teeth, skull fractures, and brain damage.
He also highlighted dangerous instances where adult biological males competed alongside underage girls.
Allowing males to compete based on self-identification has led to controversy across the U.S. and in Maine.
A biological male took first place at a high-school girls’ track competition in Standish last week, with a time that would have put him in 41st place among males, but rocketed to victory among the girls.
