Australian Athletics president Jane Flemming has backed an international move to “protect the female category” in the sport, by requiring DNA tests of competing athletes.
Flemming echoed the sentiments of World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe, who this week announced moves to use non-invasive cheek swabs and dry blood tests to determine biological gender. Coe also vowed to “doggedly protect” the female category, adding that he would do “whatever it takes”.
Athletics Australia president Jane Flemming.Credit: Joe Armao
Trans women were already barred from competing in elite level athletics, but the addition of DNA testing will extend that ban to “difference of sex development” (DSD) individuals, such as Olympic boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu‑ting from Chinese Taipei, who both won gold medals in Paris in 2024.
Flemming conceded it was “quite a complex issue”, but that Australian Athletics was governed by World Athletics, “so of course, we will do whatever the rules are.”
She also noted that such testing is not new – and is even familiar to her from experience. Flemming was tested in the same way in the late 1980s and early 1990s when she was a golden girl of Australian track and field, competing at two Olympics and winning Commonwealth Games gold medals in the heptathlon and long jump.
“What probably a lot of people don’t know, and I certainly do, is that in 1988 when I went to my first Olympic games (in Seoul), I had to do a buccal smear – what they’re suggesting, which is the inside of the cheek – and we were issued a ‘femininity certificate’. So this has all happened in the past.”
Flemming went even further back into the history of athletics to prove the point, noting the case of Stella Walsh (born Stefania Walasiewicz), who won a gold medal in the 100 metres at the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, but was much later found to have a chromosomal disorder that would likely see her now designated as intersex.
“So this has sort of been something that has challenged sport for years and years and years,” Flemming said. “I absolutely think the female category, personally, needs to be protected.
“Every rule in sport is made to give a fair playing environment, and having elevated levels of testosterone in a human body does not give a fair playing field.”
Flemming was speaking on the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks ahead of the highly anticipated Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on Saturday – a near sellout event that will feature everyone from World Athlete of the Year, Letsile Tebogo, to emerging Brisbane sprinter Gout Gout.
She talked about her life in athletics, new International Olympic Committee boss Kirsty Covington, the rising tidal wave of junior Australian athletic talent and the need for grassroots participation.
She also conceded that the DNA ban would be “challenging” but that fairness was of paramount importance.
“I believe everybody should have a place in sport. Everybody,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean they should have a place in women’s sport.”
Australian Sports Commission chief Kieren Perkins couldn’t be reached for comment, preferring to rest on previous statements, urging sport to carefully work through nuanced issues where elite level sport is concerned – so long as inclusion at the junior and grassroots level isn’t inhibited.
“The number of transgender people is tiny, the number of transgender athletes is incredibly tiny. And we are putting this issue front and centre, as if it were the most pivotal challenge to our future,” Perkins has said.
“The only pivotal question is whether an already at risk, highly ostracised part of the community is further ostracised or not. We should just be doing all we can to make all people feel like sport is a wonderful, safe place to be.”
