The Olympic trans ban can only be the starting gun not the finish line

The International Olympic Committee has announced a long overdue ban on biological men competing against women.

“Evidence-based and expert-informed”, it boasts. Protecting “fairness, safety and integrity in the female category”, it claims.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry is clear: “it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe”.

This is all unquestionably a good thing. Many have welcomed the organisation’s volte-face 22 years after it first allowed men to compete for women’s medals in the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics.

So, why are some refraining from crowning the IOC with a wreath praise? Let’s dig a little deeper.

First of all, the delay. As Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies (or to use her proper title, Baroness Davies of Devonport) rightly points out, it’s taken decades for the IOC “just to return to the point of common sense”.

The ‘powers that be’ claim to have been championing human rights in the intervening period — but in this case, they were championing the rights of gender-confused men over those of biological women. They argue that they have only been ‘following the science’ — but it’s hardly rocket science to figure out that elite male athletes can run faster, throw further and jump higher than elite female athletes. And this ‘following the science’ argument feels somewhat disingenuous considering the ill-considered and completely non-scientific lurch the IOC made all those years ago when it embraced transgender athletes in women’s Olympic sport.

The lack of an apology is also jarring. An apology to all those women who were beaten — black and blue in some cases — by male opponents. An apology to all those female athletes who lost fights, lost races, lost positions, lost podium places, lost medals, lost accolades. And what about an apology to all those who suffered reputational damage, who were branded ‘transphobes’ for speaking out against ideological tyranny?

But there will be no apology, there will be no justice for those who have missed out. The IOC caveated its announcement by saying the policy is “not retroactive”. No wrongs will be righted. It seems that the science will only start being true, and the experts right, when the policy comes into effect and the IOC tells us that won’t actually happen until the “LA28 Olympic Games onwards”.

Then there’s the realisation that this new policy is only addressing the problem at a superficial level, as it “does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programmes”. So it seems that the IOC is only interested in protecting and promoting “fairness, safety and integrity” in elite women’s sport. In other words the IOC doesn’t think it’s unfair, or unsafe or unsound to allow biological men and boys to compete against women and girls in amateur community-based ‘female only’ sporting competitions. The disconnect is quite shocking. What happened to ‘the science’? What happened to ‘the experts’? What happened to ‘fairness and safety’?

Progress has been made, certainly, and the change in policy is to be welcomed, but there is clearly a great deal more to be done if the IOC is to deliver on its promise to ringfence women’s sport from men.