2023-07-18 21:08:59
The deputy of the National Rally Julien Odoul filed in early July a bill to “have athletes compete in the category corresponding to their sex appearing on their birth certificate”. This would amount to prohibiting transgender people from competing in sports competitions in the category of their gender.
Presented to the press on Tuesday, the text would allow, according to the deputy of Yonne, to “preserve women’s sport” in the face of a practice that he equates to “a form of legalized doping”: the fact that transgender sportswomen “win competitions because of their physiological advantage”.
To justify the need for such a law, Julien Odoul describes their presence in sports competitions as “drifting”: “It’s a real danger for women’s sport, which quite simply aims to replace sportswomen with sportsmen”, assures he. Julien Odoul concedes that the number of scenarios against which he stands “is impossible to quantify” in France. But the elected official has his eyes riveted on the United States, where the practice is “widespread according to him”.
Debate in international bodies
To support these assertions, the deputy of the National Rally Roger Chudeau, also present at the press conference, cited the example of swimmer Lia Thomas, the first transgender to win a university title in the United States. Convinced that his bill is “consensual”, Julien Odoul wishes to convince all the deputies “attached to equal opportunities” to join his cause.
The question of the presence of transgender athletes in competitions of their kind has been debated for several months in international bodies, between the issue of inclusion and sports equity. In November 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked sports federations to establish their own criteria to allow them to compete at a high level. This year, the international athletics federation has decided to ban them from women’s competitions.
For her part, the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, announced in May that a group of experts should be set up by “next autumn” in France in order to define recommendations to “promote inclusion » of transgender people in high performance sport.
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