A trans-identified male runner took first place at a women’s race in France last weekend despite a recent rule change at an international level banning males from competing in female athletic competitions.
Halba Diouf, 21, broke his personal record at the Nice Côte D’Azur Athlétisme (NCAA) Interclubs Open competition in Nice on May 7. His winning time made him the ninth fastest recorded “female” in French athletic history.
He achieved a leading performance which nearly met the minimum time required for the Olympics, which Diouf has expressed interest in participating in as a “woman.”
However, due to recent rule changes proposed by World Athletics, the international governing body for the sport of athletics, male competitors who have gone through male puberty are not permitted to compete in the female categories of international competitions.
World Athletics oversees regulations for a variety of race-related events, and previous guidelines allowed men to compete in the female division if they had suppressed their testosterone levels below a certain threshold – a standard which critics pointed out was set to as much as five times higher than the average amount of the hormone found in females.
Speaking about the decision by World Athletics Diouf in a recent interview, Diouf said: “I cannot understand this decision as transgender women have always been allowed to compete if their testosterone levels were below a certain threshold … The only safeguard transgender women have is their right to live as they wish and we are being refused that, we are being hounded … I feel marginalized because they are excluding me from competitions.”
Diouf also took to social media to denounce his critics. On March 26, he posted a statement to Instagram asserting that he believed he had a right to compete against female athletes.
“I am extremely angry, because I gave up too many things to come to this,” Diouf wrote. “If we have to fight to show our existence, we will! The hordes of angry people who moan that trans people are threatening the civilization they’ve built are right.”
Two weeks ago, Diouf appeared on France TV where he repeated his views on the World Athletics decision.
“The alleged intention to ‘protect women’ by exclusionary policies like this is insidious, even pernicious, and it is intended to deceive people, especially women!” he said. “In reality, these [regulations] are not protecting anyone and harm all women by continuing to monitor women’s bodies. They are indirectly being infantile without even knowing it, and that’s a pity.”
Diouf was born in born in Senegal, but his family immigrated to France when he was four years old. He has undergone cross-sex hormone therapy and legally changed his sex marker on his identification to read “female” two years ago.
Diouf won a women’s 200m race in January 2023, just prior to the rule change by World Athletes. However, just days after winning the competition, his details were deleted from the list of participants. The French Athletics Federation (FFA) stepped in requiring more information about Diouf’s medical status and hormone levels to ensure they were in-line with World Athletics guidelines at the time for trans-identified males.
Diouf was found to have met the criteria. His endocrinologist, Alain Berliner, said the 21-year-old “is a woman, from a physiological, hormonal and legal point of view.” Only two months later in March 2023, World Athletics updated their guidelines.
In a statement about their decision, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe argued, “We cannot in all conscience leave our transgender regulations as they were at 5nmol/L for at least one year when we were unsure about the impact of doing so across all our disciplines.”
“The decision that the council made is a primarily principled based decision about the over-arching need to protect the female category. This is what our sport is here to do. And I think the council has done that today.
“We continue to take the view that we must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations. We will be guided in this by the science around physical performance and male advantage which will inevitably develop over the coming years.”
After the decision, Diouf said in an interview that he was “shocked” but would continue to present himself to female competitions despite the rule change.
The French Athletics Federation (Fédération Française d’Athlétisme – FFA) granted permission for Diouf to compete “up to the departmental level”, but his performances cannot be taken into account for an international selection, meaning he has been permitted to participate in national championships or for French women’s records. This allowed him to compete in the open competition on Sunday, where he won the women’s 200m race.
World Athletics are not the only sporting governing body to update their policy on males competing in women’s sports. FINA, the international swimming world’s governing body, voted to ban trans-identified males from elite female competitions if they had undergone male puberty.
Reduxx is your source of pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding news and commentary. We’re 100% independent! Support our mission by joining our Patreon, or consider making a one-time donation.
