Legal Experts in human rights and sports advise the International Olympic Committee to prioritise athletes’ health, wellbeing and, bodily autonomy and privacy
The International Olympics Committee (IOC) Framework advises International Federations to prioritize athletes’ health, wellbeing, bodily autonomy, and privacy. Current genetic sex testing rules fail to do so, in violation of numerous domestic and international laws. Legal experts in human rights and sports have issued this statement out of urgent concern about the regressive move toward genetic testing as a precondition of participation in women’s sport. Such eligibility rules, which have already been adopted by several major International Federations—including World Athletics, World Boxing, World Aquatics, and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation—not only conflict with the IOC’s existing guidelines on the matter, but also violate domestic and international laws that protect human rights and regulate the use of genetic testing and genetic information.
