After the battering that sport’s reputation has taken in the past few months, it was due a good news story. It has come, some say, in the form of the IOC’s rule change which states that transgender athletes are no longer required to undergo gender reassignment surgery in order to compete. It was revealed last week by the Outsports website that the new regulations specify that transgender males can compete 'without restriction' and transgender females can compete after undergoing one year of hormone replacement therapy.

These new guidelines are expected to be in place in time for the Rio Olympics this summer and have been hailed as a hugely positive move by the IOC. On the face of it, this does seem like a significant step towards equality for trans-athletes with Arne Ljungqvist of the IOC’s medical committee welcoming the step as “more flexible and more liberal”. It is, unquestionably, good news for trans-athletes but a closer look reveals that the new regulations are not, in fact good news for everyone, specifically female athletes.

Sports, in the main, are gender-segregated in order to create a level playing field. It is accepted that men typically possess significant physical advantages over women. In almost every sport in which physicality plays a part, the best men will perform to a higher standard than the best women. And that is why the IOC’s new regulations are so concerning; once the new rules are applied, trans-women can compete as females after undergoing hormone treatment to reduce their testosterone level for just one year. Providing their testosterone levels remain below 10 nmol/L for twelve months, they are eligible to compete as females.

Testosterone levels in the average man range from 7.5 to 25 nmol/L while the levels in the average woman are between 0.2 and 3 nmol/L. So a trans-female athlete could, if they are near the top of the range of permitted testosterone levels, legally and legitimately compete against those who were born female while having three times the amount of performance-enhancing testosterone in their system.

Higher testosterone levels are not the only physical advantage that males naturally possess: men have larger skeletons, longer limbs, narrower hips, higher lean body mass, and greater lung capacity, all of which add up to performance advantages over athletes who were born women. When one considers the level of cheating and corruption that has been uncovered within sport recently, it is extremely realistic to suggest that this rule will be exploited and abused by nations and athletes who possess a win at all costs mentality.

There is already evidence to suggest that this may be happening. Currently, the Iranian women’s football team contains eight trans-women. It is estimated that in America, only 0.3% of the population are trans so the fact that there are eight national team footballers in Iran are seems disproportionate, to say the least. And there is Fallon Fox, an American MMA fighter. She was an operations specialist in the US Navy before she transitioned and began competing as a female in MMA. Last year, she annihilated an opponent in an MMA fight to an extent that is rarely seen in women’s sport. “I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night,” said Fox’s opponent, Tamikka Brents. Fox’s physical superiority cannot be definitively attributed to the fact that she was born a man but it certainly raises questions.

There is no doubt that the issue of trans-athletes is a tricky one. The world of sport has, in the past, been remarkably poor at dealing with contentious issues regarding gender, most notably in the case of Caster Semenya. The South African became 800m world champion in 2009 before having her gender publically and shamefully questioned when it was revealed that she had elevated testosterone levels. The IAAF let it be known that they were making her undergo gender verification tests to confirm that she was, in fact, female. Gender testing is legitimate within sport, however, publicly humiliating an individual, as was done to Semenya who was eventually cleared to compete again, is utterly unacceptable and should never be repeated. Dutee Chand, an Indian female sprinter, is another athlete who has been handled poorly by sport- she was ruled ineligible to compete due to her hyperandrogenism prior to the Court of Arbitration for Sport suspending the hyperandrogenism rule on the basis that there was a lack of evidence, allowing Chand to compete again.

That the IOC is making an attempt to be proactive on this issue should be heartily applauded. However, denouncing moves made to advance rights for trans-people is often seen as sacrilegious and so there has been little in the way of criticism for the IOC’s new rules. Caution must be exercised though; rushing to implement new regulations without thinking through the consequences for all athletes is a dangerous path to go down and it must be remembered that fairness and equality is just as applicable when it comes to female athletes as it is for trans-athletes.