A cheek swab is, in most cases, entirely uncontroversial.
Quick, easy and non-invasive, it’s typically the blandest of bland medical procedures.
Except, in sport, that is.
The news that World Athletics will introduce mandatory cheek swabs for all those wishing to compete in the female category has caused quite an uproar.
Some might say a disproportionate uproar.
The reason for this move by track and field’s governing body is clear: it wants to “protect fairness in the female category”.
Protecting the female category, or not, has become a hot, potentially the hottest, topic in sport in recent years.
As has been established, inclusion and fairness cannot co-exist when it comes to the female category in sport and specifically, when talking about trans-women or DSD women in sport.
The issue with trans-women competing in the female category is self-explanatory, with the question being should individuals who were born male but transition to becoming women be permitted to compete as women? Research suggests that individuals who have been born male retain some residual benefits of going through male puberty and so have an unfair advantage over their female competitors. Increasingly, sporting bodies believe trans-women should not be allowed to compete as women but there is certainly not a consensus.
And then there’s DSD athletes, who are individuals who do not develop along typically male-female lines and instead, their hormones, genes and reproductive organs have a mix of male and female characteristics. This means female DSD athletes have, many believe, an advantage over their other female competitors.
In many cases, governing bodies and officials have obfuscated and danced around the issue as much as they can in order to delay or defer making a tough decision.
There’s talk about fairness and inclusion both being vitally important within sport which, clearly, is true.
But when it comes to a point that both can’t be protected and one needs to be chosen above the other, so many sports have been unwilling to stick their head above the parapet.
This is where athletics has been an impressive outlier.
Athletics has stood alone in world sport by making clear that the protection of the female category is the priority, above all else.
Certainly track and field has been forced to deal with this issue more publicly than most other sports.
In Caster Semenya, the South African former 800m Olympic champion, the sport has an athlete who was forced to publicly endure a truly horrendous process while it was decided whether she was eligible to compete in the female category or not.
Semenya is, it has been widely reported, DSD and given she dominated the 800m for a period, it’s unsurprising that her case became so high-profile.
Ultimately, it was ruled by World Athletics that Semenya, and other DSD athletes, could only compete if they took testosterone-suppressing medication.
Semenya’s case, plus the increasing prevalence of trans-women succeeding in women’s sport, made it clear, to those at the top of athletics at least, that set-in-stone rules were required.
It’s hard to argue with this thinking.
The worst of all worlds is what’s happened too many times previously; that athletes compete in the female category but are then vilified publicly by those who believe they should not be competing as females.
Which is why the cheek swab idea by World Athletics is the best move forward.
Some of the testing Semenya was reportedly subjected to was invasive, degrading and humiliating. No one would ever condone or support this being the procedure going forward.
So cheek swabs, which take all of a few seconds to complete and consistently give a reliable result in testing DNA, are an excellent introduction.
The timeline for the implementing the cheek swab procedure has yet to be confirmed but it’s hoped it’ll be in place by this autumn’s World Championships. Athletes will only have to take the test once in their career and it ensures there should no longer be any grey area when it comes to who is eligible to compete as a female, and who is not.
“We’re not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it,” said World Athletics President, Seb Coe. “And this, we feel, is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”
I find it hard to find fault with this reasoning yet there has still been considerable kickback to the cheek swab policy.
There are those who claim it’s discriminatory, and others who claim it’s racist given it’s women of colour who are more likely to be born DSD.
A policy which deals with the contentious issue of “who is female” is never going to appease everyone.
But despite this, a policy has to be made.
Everyone witnessed the madness that engulfed the Olympic boxing tournament last summer when Algerian fighter, Imane Khelif, won gold despite, reports claimed, she’d previously failed a gender test.
Such a circus can never be allowed to happen again, and World Athletics is surely mindful of the potential for something to explode if they don’t eliminate the grey area that currently exists.
Cheek swabs do this; they make a very contentious subject as uncomplicated as possible. Yes, there will be those who claim inclusion is being sacrificed but World Athletics has decided where its priorities lie.
There will, I’m sure, be more than a few sports that follow suit in the coming years.
