Sport
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World Athletics decides to mandate sex testing for women athletes
On 25 March 2025, World Athletics announced that it will introduce new restrictive “pre-clearance requirements” following approval at the most recent World Athletics Council meeting, to mandate DNA testing for all athletes who wish to participate in the women’s competition. The new requirements would ask athletes to take a cheek swab test to look for…
Categories: Sport -
World Athletics is paving the way towards complete exclusion of trans and intersex women from sports
On 10 February 2025, World Athletics announced a new stakeholder consultation as part of the revision of its eligibility criteria for the Female Category at the elite level, alongside revisions to the existing DSD (Differences of Sex Development) and Transgender Regulations. Led by World Athletics’ Working Group on Gender Diverse Athletes, the revision claims to…
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OII Europe strongly condemns the hate speech against two athletes competing in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris
Hateful attacks against athletes Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting fueled by sports federations’ sex testing practices. “Every person has the right to practise sport without discrimination” International Olympic Committee OII Europe strongly condemns the hate speech against two athletes competing in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. The hateful rhetoric centres around speculations about their…
Tags: 2024, athletes, Boxing, Hate Speech, intersex human rights, IOC, Olympics, Paris, Sex testing, Sports -
Semenya v. Switzerland
We welcome today’s ruling of the ECtHR in the case of Semenya v. Switzerland. The Court found a violation of art. 14 together with art. 8, for discrimination on grounds of sex and sex characteristics. Caster Semenya – an international level athlete – had stopped participating in competitions following the International Association of Athletics Federations’…
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Category: Woman – Documentary
We are happy to be presenting partners together with Human Rights Watch for the documentary Category: Woman. It premieres on Friday, 17 March 2023 in London during the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Category: Woman is an urgent documentary highlighting the policing of women’s bodies in sport – and what happens when sexism and racism…
Tags: athletes, discrimination, Documentary, Film, human rights violations, Olympics, Racism, Sex testing, sport, Sports -
OII Europe statement on the new IOC framework
On November 16, 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the launch of a groundbreaking new framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations*. This framework was created after a two-year consultation process with more than 250 athletes and concerned stakeholders towards adopting a comprehensive human rights strategy.…
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LBTI Women in Sports: violence, discrimination and lived experiences
In March 2021, a coalition of European networks working on LGBTI rights and including ILGA Europe, EL*C, TGEU, OII Europe and EGLSF submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe a briefing note on violence and discrimination against LBTI women in sport. The PACE has drawn attention to gender-based violence and discrimination in…
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Intersex and Sports
On February 25th, 2021 South African athlete Caster Semenya filed an application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)1 to fight for dignity, equality, and the human rights of women in sports. She challenges the demeaning and intrusive regulations implemented by the World Athletics in 2018 that discriminate and prohibit some women, including women…
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A groundbreaking resolution has been adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on the elimination of discrimination against women and girls in sport.
A groundbreaking resolution has been adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on the elimination of discrimination against women and girls in sport. For the first time it notes with concern the discrimination faced by women and girls born with variations of sex characteristics. It also recognizes that sport regulations and practices can reinforce harmful…
