Should Transgenders be allowed to participate in Olympics?

After looking at a recent incident at 2024 Paris Olympics where an Algerian boxer "Imane Khelif" was accused of being a 'biological male,' defeated Italian boxer Angela Carini in just 46 seconds at the Paris Olympics. To understand if Transgenders should be allowed into Olympics or Not, I did try to learn about it and thought would share the same with my readers as well.

This article might help you comprehend about what measures did IOC & IAAF took before allowing it. Those who claim as Trans or fall under LGBTQ+ category athletes, must undergo a hormone therapy for an appropriate time before participation, with two years being the suggested time. It was not until 2004 that the IOC allowed transgender athletes to participate in the Olympic Games, Later when the pressure from LGBTQ+ community grew to consider them as a separate gender, a committee was formed and required necessary steps were taken to "How this should be addressed" Also IOC was quite obvious that questions will be raised even after taking as appropriate steps as possible.

Apart from this, it was also made sure that the hormonal therapy appropriate for the assigned sex has been administered in a verifiable manner and for a sufficient length of time to minimise gender-related advantages in sport competitions.

The present recommendation is the result of an updating of the IAAF guidelines by a panel of experts and to which clear requirements have been added with respect to eligibility for competition under the new gender following sex reassignment after puberty. The most debated aspects have been:

1. For how long will the hormonal influence of the earlier puberty be of importance?

2. Will the testosterone influence on the muscular strength during male puberty ever disappear?

3. For how long should the treatment with female hormones last in order to be considered sufficient?

4. How can one make sure that the required treatment with female hormone does really take place? All those questions were addressed by the panel, which also sought advice from further outside experts, before the enclosed recommendations were agreed upon. 

After having said that, these are the major measures or parameters to be followed to be able to participate, Recent rumors suggest that Algerian boxer "Imane Khelif" is not a female after based on the ‘The medical result, blood result, looks -- and the laboratory says -- that this boxer is male,’ said IBA on Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. However Algeria completely disagrees with it and claims that IBA is not a legitimate organisation.

As of now, I believe that we are still in a begining phase of differentiating gender translation and identifying which particular gender should actually fall into which category and what factors do actually matter in order to exercise this. My last view on allowing Trans genders into Olympics as of now is not a right thing to do. Just like we can not rely half truth, We shouldn't rely on half facts as well. More work scientifically should be done before considering this as a real concept.

Abbreviations:

1. IOC : International Olympic Committee.

2. IAAFF : International Association of Athletics Federations.

3. LGBTQ+ : lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer, “+” represents non-cisgender and non-straight identities.

4. IBA : International Boxing Association