Transgender athletes should be able to compete at the Olympic Games and other international events without having to undergo gender reassignment surgery, according to the International Olympic Committee.
Female-to-male athletes can compete “without restriction,” while male-to-female athletes must undergo hormone therapy in order to adapt to current scientific, social, and legal attitudes on transgender people.
“Our bodies have been policed for a very long time,” Meg Evans, who is director of UGA’s LGBT Resource Center said, “so I am excited that it is a step in the right direction.”
Since 2004, athletes who were transitioning were required to have surgery, have at least two years of hormone therapy and be legally recognized as their changed gender before competing.
“If they see themselves as transgender and consider themselves as female and they’ve been that way for a while, competing or training as a female — and they don’t have any advantages through hormones — then that is absolutely fair,” Addison Cord, who is an athlete at the University of Georgia said.
These new guidelines are not rules or regulations — they are simply recommendations — for international sports federations and other bodies to follow and should apply for this year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
If they see themselves as transgender and consider themselves as female and they’ve been that way for a while they’ve been competing or training as a female and they don’t have any advantages through hormones, then that is absolutely fair. I think its really cool that they’ll get to compete against those who they see themselves with.—Addyson Cord
I think that now that they are making for strives and that they are allowed to play the sport they want, i think its amazing and it is showing how much we are moving forward as a community–Emma Mandarino
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– committee says it changed the policies to adapt to current attitudes on transgender issues – the Skimm (screenshot)
Medical chiefs at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have recommended the change which could mean transgender athletes would be more readily able to take part in this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro as well as other international events.
