World Athletics has banned transgender women from participating in women’s sports at the Summer 2024 Paris Olympics and French native Halba Diouf is slamming that decision.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Diouf said, “I cannot understand this decision as transgender women have always been allowed to compete if their testosterone levels were below a certain threshold, The only safeguard transgender women have is their right to live as they wish, and we are being refused that, we are being hounded. … I feel marginalized because they are excluding me from competitions.”
World Athletics responded back to Diouf claim saying, “Decisions are always difficult when they involve conflicting needs and rights between different groups, but we continue to take the view that we must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said when the decision was made.
In March, regulations for natural testosterone – often perceived as the sole determinant of athletic performance – were halved to 2.5 nanomoles for female athletes and must be maintained for two years for DSD athletes. And still, Diouf reportedly meets that requirement.
“I started my hormonal treatment three years ago, in January 2020, when I came to South of France. I started it with estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone blockers. I could see results after three, four months. (flash) It was progressive, I mean you don’t become a woman overnight, it really does take time. It’s gradual.”
“Her testosterone levels are currently below those found on average in women who were born as women, cisgender women.”
Diouf’s endocrinologist Alain Berliner finds the ban confusing and calls it a “kind of transphobia.”
“For this laboratory, the testosterone level for a woman is between 0.08 and, let’s say, 0.50 (micrograms per liter – 0.28 to 1.67 nanomoles per liter) and Halba has 0.21 (0.73 nanomoles per liter). So she is absolutely not advantaged in sports by the testosterone because she has very, very little. In Halba’s case, who is a woman in every sense of the word – she is hormonally a woman – and from a physiological and legal point of view, a woman. Everything is in order.”