World Boxing will require a sex test prior to competitions ahead of the World Boxing Championships this September in order to ensure athletes of one biological sex compete as such and not as their opposite gender identity.
A policy revealed by World Boxing Wednesday outlined the platform’s new procedure for testing. World Boxing now requires “all athletes over the age of 18 that want to participate in a World Boxing owned or sanctioned competition will need to undergo a, once-in-a lifetime, PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test or a functional medical equivalent genetic test to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility to compete.”
“World Boxing respects the dignity of all individuals and is keen to ensure it is as inclusive as possible,” stated World Boxing president Boris Van Der Vorst. “Yet in a combat sport like boxing, we have a duty of care to deliver safety and competitive fairness, which are the key principles that have guided the development and creation of this policy.”
Moreover, boxers must now explicitly compete as their biological gender and not as their gender identity.
“World Boxing also wishes the sport of Boxing to be as inclusive as possible, and to encourage and provide a clear path to participation in the sport for all,” the policy stated. “World Boxing has determined that to ensure safety, competitive fairness, and equal treatment for all athletes, it is essential that strict sex based categories determined by sex at birth be maintained and enforced. Boxers who identify as transgender are welcome to compete in the category of their birth sex in the sport of Olympic-style boxing under the same conditions applicable to all athletes in that sex, age, and weight category.”
Athlete safety is a matter of concern according to World Boxing, which they address at length in their policy. Ensuring safety appears to relate to the strict requirement of boxers competing within their biological sex.
“World Boxing has also determined that in the sport of boxing, an equally important fundamental goal for this eligibility policy is athlete safety. In combat sports like boxing, participants throw punches to the scoring area of the head and upper body, with the intent of accumulating points, the referee stopping the contest or by delivering a knockout. Boxing therefore creates a unique safety challenge, both acutely and chronically, for neurological injury, which can result in serious injury. These risks are real, which is why it is so important that World Boxing’s policy on eligibility endeavors to provide a level playing field that ensures fairness, competitiveness and above all, safety for all boxers,” the policy concluded in this respect.
This policy change comes months after gold medalist of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Imane Khelif, faced controversy over her questionable gender-status during competitions. Khelif has said that she was born a woman, although the results of a prior sex test reveal XY (male) chromosomes.
