Off The Field

The Olympics needs to protect women, he said:

While Coe did not outright say that he would hope to ban men who identify as transgender women from playing in women’s categories, he did say that if women’s categories are not protected, then “it will not end well for women’s sports,” The Guardian reported. Coe ran the London Olympics in 2012 and is also a double gold medalist in track and field. He won the top medal in the 1500 meter in 1980 and 1984 and two silvers in the 800 meter in those same years. The Brit promised not to be a “vanilla” president if he won the election and vowed to make the IOC more democratic. But it is his stance on the transgender issue that has the media’s tongues wagging. This week, Coe told the BBC that “the protection of the female category … is absolutely non-negotiable” and added that “if you’re not prepared to do that … then you really will lose female sport.” As the Guardian noted, he also told reporters that the current IOC guidance on transgender athletes is too ambiguous. “It has to be a clearcut policy, and International Federations must have some flexibility,” Coe explained. “But it is incumbent on the IOC to create that landscape. It’s a very clear proposition to me – if you do not protect [the female] category, or you are in any way ambivalent about it for whatever reason, then it will not end well for women’s sport. I come from a sport where that is absolutely sacrosanct.”

Women still matter...