‘Unethical, unscientific and discriminatory’: Transgender Olympic athlete uses science to end notion that gender testing is ‘fair’

Ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, last month the WTA announced a mandatory one-time gene testing policy for all players. The policy change is designed "to preserve the integrity of women's professional tennis and maintain fair competition conditions for all players" via gender screening "based on biological sex."

Two of the biggest players weighed in on the policy, with transgender athlete participation in women's sports becoming a national story in light of WNBA player Sophie Cunningham's recent comments.

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"I think it's really important to keep the fairness in our tour, and it's obvious that biologically, right, the men are way stronger than women," current world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka responded.

"So I feel like it would be not really fair for the women to compete against biological men. So it's— I believe it took them a little while to make this decision, and I Yeah, I support it, but for me, I'm focusing on myself, on my goals, you know, whatever it takes. If they want to test us all, I'm happy to do that. It's pretty fair, and let's keep it that way."

The world No. 4, Coco Gauff, also addressed the new policy recently.

"I understand the reasoning behind it," Gauff said. "I do think that this kind of conversation has created a lot of animosity towards the trans community, which I'm not really a big fan of, but I also understand the need to [account for] the biological difference and the need to protect that and preserve that. So I think it's a conversation that is very nuanced."

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Science settles all

In the aftermath of the comments, Kristi Miller, who was an Australian Olympian before transitioning and has already addressed Cunningham's comments, is using science to settle any debate around the WTA's policy.

"This is what a lack of knowledge about what's actually being regulated and why it's being regulated looks like," Miller posted on X. "Sex tests are not merely mouth swabs. These tests are not about excluding trans women from the WTA.

"Any female identified with a SRY gene will be subjected to secondary sex testing procedures. The last time the Olympics did sex testing 8 women were found to have an SRY gene. All underwent invasive secondary testing and all were cleared to compete as they had no advantage. Sadly all of their careers and in one case her life was lost via suicide."

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Miller went on to cite the lack of scientific evidence that trans participation in sports is unfair.

"This measure to return to sex testing of female athletes represents a return to practices that are unethical, unscientific and discriminatory and which were widely condemned in the past by doctors, bioethics experts and international human rights organisations. Even the scientist who discovered it says the IOC should not use SRY test to determine gender of women's athletes.

"There is no scientific evidence linking the SRY gene an advantage in sporting performance. No one has yet been able to find any connection between this gene and athletic performance."

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