A ban by World Rugby could prove influential for transgender sports

IT IS THEIOC latest development in a bitter argument. On October 9th World Rugby, the global governing body for rugby union, decided to bar trans women—people who are biologically male, but identify as women—from playing in the international women’s game, on the grounds that it is unsafe. That ban will probably affect the top levels of the game in individual countries, too, since international players are drawn from the top clubs. Decisions on what to do in the game’s lower levels have been left to the governing bodies in individual countries.World Rugby’s decision puts it at odds with much of the rest of the sporting world. The International Olympic Committee () has allowed trans women to compete in women’s events since 2004. It loosened its rules in 2015, removing the requirement for genital surgery in favour of a declaration of good faith, and requiring, in the interest of fair competition, that trans women reduce the amount of testosterone in their blood for at least a year before competing. The idea behind this was that suppressing testosterone would reduce or eliminate the athletic advantages conferred by male physiology.