Thread by @RogerPielkeJr

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Today IOC released a new Framework on Fairness, Inclusion & Non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity & sex variations
olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-r…

This offers a sharp rebuke to World Athletics "Semenya Rule" barring certain women from competition without medicating

The IOC prioritizes the prevention of harm

The World Medical Association @medwma opposes the World Athletics "Semenya Rule" because of its harm to athletes

No more need be said on this topic

IOC comes out against sex testing of athletes - Good

Yet the WADA Anti-Doping Code was recently modified in light of the "Semenya Rule" to allow drug tests to be used for gender verification

This is wrong

IOC says athletes should be prevented from claiming a gender identity "different from the one consistently are persistently used"

So is it OK for a sport federation to classify an athlete's gender identity to be different than the one they "consistently and persistently use"?
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IOC says no athlete should be excluded based on a perceived advantage

This undercuts the entire CAS judgment against Semenya, which was grounded only in a perceived advantage (and earlier rejected as such in Chand CAS judgment)

And here is the kicker
IOC says "any restrictions arising from eligibility criteria should be based on robust and peer-reviewed research"

The "Semenya Rule" is based on research admitted to be flawed by WA & putatively (but not) fixed in a non-peer-reviewed letter

Wow IOC

But wait there's more

IOC is against medically unnecessary procedures or treatment to meet eligibility criteria

The WA "Semenya Rule" is centered on medically unnecessary procedures to meet eligibility criteria

IOC against invasive examinations
WA requires them

Again, wow IOC

IOC supports an athlete's right to privacy

But as we saw in Tokyo the WA "Semenya Rule" cannot by design protect privacy, in fact the opposite as we saw in headlines around the world

IOC calls for informed consent when collecting data used for sex or gender testing

But the linkage of sex testing with anti-doping makes this currently impossible

IOC calls for periodic review of eligibility criteria

Since the "Semenya Rule" went into effect there has been no such review, despite the research underpinning the rule being corrected by the journal that published it & WA admitting that it was misleading

Bottom line:

The new IOC Framework provides about a dozen reasons to rethink the World Athletics "Semenya Rule" (as if we needed even more)

This is a significant development