McLarnon, M, Thornton, J, Knudson, G, Jones, N, Glover, D, Murray, A, Cummings, M and Heron, N (2023) A Scoping Review of Transgender Policies in the 15 Most Commonly Played UK Professional Sports. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20 (4). ISSN 1660-4601

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Abstract

INTRODUCTION: There has been much debate recently on the participation of transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) athletes in sport, particularly in relation to fairness, safety and inclusion. The 2021 IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-discrimination acknowledges the central role that eligibility criteria play in ensuring fairness, particularly in the female category, and states that athletes should not be excluded solely on the basis of their TGD identity. AIMS: To identify policies that address TGD athlete participation in the 15 major United Kingdom (UK) sporting organisations and to summarise the evidence for each of these policies. METHODS: A scoping review of TGD policies from the 15 major UK sporting organisations. RESULTS: Eleven of the governing bodies had publicly available TGD policies. Most of the sporting associations drew guidance from the official 2015 IOC Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism, particularly with regard to physiological testosterone levels. Many organisations referenced their policies as a guide for decision making but stated that they ultimately made case-by-case decisions on an athlete's eligibility. Relevant considerations not addressed in most policies included pre- versus post-pubertal athletes, justification for testosterone thresholds, the length of time out of competitive action (if any) for transitioning athletes, the irreversible advantage from male puberty (if any), the responsibility for and frequency of follow up for hormonal testing and the consequences for athletes outside set testosterone limits. CONCLUSIONS: There is a lack of consensus among the top 15 UK sporting organizations relating to elite sport participation for TGD athletes. It would be useful for sport organizations to work together to develop greater standardization/consensus for TGD athlete policies, taking into consideration fairness, safety and inclusion in each sport.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Subjects: R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC1200 Sports Medicine
Divisions: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Medicine
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Symplectic
Date Deposited: 09 Mar 2023 08:59
Last Modified: 09 Mar 2023 08:59
URI: https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/12001

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