Scientific integrity and the IAAF testosterone regulations

Abstract

In April 2018, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced new regulations governing the eligibility of certain female athletes with differences of sexual development accompanied by elevated levels of natural testosterone. Such women with testosterone levels above a specific threshold would be banned from competing as females unless they were to undergo medical intervention. In this paper, we examine key elements of the scientific basis offered by IAAF in support of the regulations, based on a subset of original performance data provided to us by IAAF. We identify significant flaws in the data used by IAAF leading to unreliable results. Further, these failures have not been corrected by IAAF or the academic journal which has published them, leading to a comprehensive failure of scientific integrity. We argue that the IAAF testosterone regulations are based on a flawed scientific foundation and that this case offers more general lessons for the sport governance community on the importance of upholding the standards of scientific integrity expected in other areas of policy and regulation.