Female Sport Consortium urges IOC to establish sex verification
- Monday, 11 November 2024
The International Consortium On Female Sport (ICFS) published an open letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) urging its Executive Committee to review and re-establish its sex-based eligibility guidelines to restore safety and fairness for female athletes.
The letter, penned by Canadian track and field champion and ICFS founder Linda Blade, calls out the IOC’s failure to consult female athletes to establish its policies since female sex verification was abandoned in 1999. It claims that the progression since then —including the Stockholm Consensus and Transgender Consensus— relinquish female athletes’ rights to safe and fair sport and is a clear violation of the Olympic Charter.
The global XX sports community says ENOUGH and issues our OPEN LETTER reminding @Olympics executives and #ThomasBach of the systematic descent into their untenable position allowing male advantage in women’s #Olympic sports.
Solution offered!#Respect https://t.co/leIvW82OH9
— International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS) (@ICFSport) November 9, 2024
The Charter states that athletes are entitled to participate in Olympic sports without discrimination based on sex. The ICFS asserts that “there can be no greater example of sex discrimination than allowing a male athlete to compete against women and seize from them a medal, a placing or even a chance to compete at all” and cites Roviel Detenamo’s case — who was excluded from the Tokyo 2020 Games because of the “inclusion” of male-born Laurel Hubbard.
The ICFS also highlights the recent events at the Paris Olympics, involving boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, who the International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified from their Women’s World Boxing Championships after failing the gender testing. However, they would go on to compete at the Games and win gold in their respective weight classes.
It accuses the IOC of «putting female Olympic boxers at extreme risk of injury» and allowing them to «unfairly lose out on podium position».








