World Athletics approves swab test to determine female gender

Sebastian Coe, the president of the international track and field federation, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan 30, 2025 (Fabrice Coffrini/Pool Photo via AP) (Fabrice Coffrini/AP)

World Athletics said on Tuesday it had approved the introduction of a cheek swab test to determine if an athlete is biologically female.

Sebastian Coe, the president of the international track and field federation, said the test, whose introduction was given the green light by the World Athletics Council, was a “really important” way of protecting the female category.

“It’s important to do it because it maintains everything that we’ve been talking about, and particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it,” Coe said in a press conference after the Council met over two days in Nanjing, China following the World Indoor Championships.

“We feel this is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition,” he added.

World Athletics has not fixed a date for the introduction of the test, but it is expected to be in place for the outdoor World Championships in Tokyo this September.

Coe said the decision to introduce the swab testing was taken after a wide consultation on the proposal.

“Overwhelmingly, the view has come back that this is absolutely the way to go,” Coe said, adding that the swab test was not considered to be overly intrusive.

He said he was confident that the policy could stand up to legal challenge, but added: “You accept the fact that that is the world we live in.

“I would never have set off down this path to protect the female category in sport if I’d been anything other than prepared to take the challenge head on.

“We’ve been to the Court of Arbitration on our DSD (difference of sex development) regulations.

“They have been upheld, and they have again been upheld after appeal. So we will doggedly protect the female category, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it. And we’re not just talking about it.”

World Athletics is looking at cheek swab tests but is also considering using blood spot tests.

The test for the SRY gene, which is “almost always on the male Y chromosome” and “is used as a highly accurate proxy for biological sex”, would need to be taken just once by an athlete during their career, the federation says.

Coe warned during his campaign to be elected International Olympic Committee president “that we run the risk of losing women’s sport” unless the female category was protected.

The Briton finished third in the race last week which was won by Kirsty Coventry, the former Olympic swimmer from Zimbabwe.