a report by The Guardian<\/a>, the IOC’s medical and scientific director presented a detailed review last week confirming that physical advantages persist in athletes who have undergone male puberty, even with hormone treatment.<\/p>\n“It was a very scientific, factual and unemotional presentation,” one IOC insider said. “It clearly laid out the evidence.”<\/p>\n
Jones, a former All-American tennis player at Stanford, says she hopes the IOC’s final policy includes mandatory sex verification screening, like the SRY gene test already in use by World Athletics and World Boxing. It’s a solution that only makes sense.<\/p>\n
“You can’t create a sports category without having an enforcement mechanism,” Jones explained. “If you have a weight class, you’ve got to have a scale to step on. And if you have an age group category, you have to be able to verify the age of your athletes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So if you have a women’s category, you have got to have that verification or enforcement mechanism in place.”<\/p>\n
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Protestors in California hold signs in support of protecting girls’ sports outside a high school track meet.<\/p>\n
(Photo by Kirby Lee\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
For Jones, this isn\u2019t a political issue at all. It’s just a matter of basic biology and fairness.<\/p>\n
“People can gain weight or lose weight and change weight classes. They can age into new age groups,” she said. “But they cannot change their sex. It’s rock solid. It’s immutable.”<\/p>\n
While Progress Is Made Globally, Blue States Dig In Their Heels<\/p>\n
While international sports bodies are beginning to accept reality, Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. continue to deny it. Despite President Donald Trump’s executive order to protect girls’ and women’s sports, several states still allow males into women’s divisions and locker rooms at the scholastic and recreational levels.<\/p>\n
“California. Oregon. Minnesota. We\u2019re on the phone with women and girls in these states \u2014 in hockey leagues, soccer leagues, middle school teams \u2014 and they\u2019re facing horrible, unsafe situations,” Jones said. “They\u2019re being humiliated. And they\u2019re not being protected by leadership.”<\/p>\n
While a hodgepodge of legal battles are currently underway, Jones says federal court rulings are urgently needed to establish consistent protections for women and girls across all 50 states.<\/p>\n
“There are a whole bunch of lawsuits right now coming from men suing for access to women’s sports. There are active lawsuits in New York, Massachusetts, California, and more states, too,” she said. “And we\u2019re supporting three federal cases right now \u2014 including Riley Gaines\u2019 lawsuit \u2014 because that\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take. We need binding legal decisions.”<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump joined by women athletes signs the “No Men in Women\u2019s Sports” executive order in the East Room at the White House.<\/p>\n
(Photo by Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear two cases in the coming months regarding the legality of statewide bans on transgender athletes<\/a> in the female category. These rulings could have sweeping implications for the future of women’s sports.\u00a0<\/p>\nAnd as a mother of four \u2014 including two daughters who compete in athletics \u2014 Jones is hoping that the future is a bright one. That’s why she, along with 15x All-American swimmer Marshi Smith, founded ICONS.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s no way I\u2019m leaving this world to my granddaughters like this,” she said. “Another generation of women and girls cannot face this public abuse. It can\u2019t continue.”<\/p>\n
Hopefully, following the IOC’s reported course correction, the dominoes will continue to fall in the right direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The International Olympic Committee is finally taking a stand for women’s sports. And it only took men punching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-257022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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