Track and field to be first Olympic event to require DNA tests to prove sex
Track and field is set to become the first Olympic sport to require participants in women’s events to undergo DNA testing to prove their biological sex following a decision by World Athletics.
Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, said on Wednesday that track and field’s governing body had agreed to introduce the testing to keep the “absolute focus on the integrity of competition”.
“It’s important to do it because it maintains everything that we’ve been talking about, and particularly recently, about not just talking about the integrity of female women’s sport, but actually guaranteeing it,” Coe told reporters on Tuesday after a two-day meeting of the governing body’s council in Nanjing, China.
“And this, we feel, is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition.”
Coe, a former Olympic medal-winning middle-distance runner, said the body had made the decision following an “exhaustive review” and consultations with more than 70 sporting and advocacy groups.
“Overwhelmingly, the view has come back that this is absolutely the way to go,” Coe said.
Coe, who earlier this month mounted an unsuccessful bid to lead the International Olympic Committee, said competitors would be subject to non-invasive cheek swabs and dry blood-spot tests and would only be checked once in their career.
“We will doggedly protect the female category and we will do whatever is necessary to do it, and we’re not just talking about it,” he said.
The decision is the latest turn in the heated debate over the participation of transgender women and gender non-conforming athletes in women’s sport.
World Athletics in 2023 announced a ban on transgender women who had gone through male puberty, pending a review into the eligibility requirements for participants in female competition.
The move overturned previous rules that allowed transgender women to compete if they maintained a blood testosterone level of no more than 5nmol/L for the preceding 12 months.
While broadly aimed at athletes who have changed their gender, World Athletics’s testing requirements would also affect small numbers of competitors who were born with atypical sex chromosomes.
World Athletics’s decision also comes on the heels of similar moves by several major sporting bodies, including World Aquatics and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the main governing body for college sport in the United States.
The International Olympic Committee, which will oversee the running of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, has allowed transgender athletes to compete since 2004 but ultimately defers to the eligibility rules set by individual sporting bodies.
Beyond the world of sport, the issue has become a lightning rod in the broader culture wars taking place in the US and other Western countries.
Last month, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to deny federal government funding to educational institutes that allow trans girls and women to participate in female sport and use female changing rooms.
In a New York Times/Ipsos poll published in January, 79 percent of Americans said that trans women should not be allowed to participate in female sports, up from 62 percent in 2021.
Source: Apps Support
US judge blocks deportation of another pro-Palestinian student activist
A judge has ruled that Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Korean American student at Columbia University who is being sought for deportation by the administration of President Donald Trump, cannot be detained as she fights attempts to remove her from the United States over her pro-Palestinian views.
“As of today, Yunseo Chung no longer has to fear and live in fear of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] coming to her doorstep and abducting her in the night,” Chung’s lawyer Ramzi Kassem said after the court ruling on Tuesday.
US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said government lawyers had not yet laid out enough facts about their claims that they needed to detain the student while her case against deportation plays out in court.
“Nor was it clear why Ms Chung would pose potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” the judge said, citing a rationale that the Trump administration has invoked in Chung’s case and those of other student protesters it is seeking to throw out of the country over their pro-Palestinian activism.
“What is the issue with permitting her to stay in the community and not be subjected to ICE detention while the parties participate in rational, orderly briefing?” the judge said, using a legal term for fleshing out arguments in court filings.
The ruling for Chung, who has lived in the US since she was 7 years old and holds permanent residency, was a small win in a larger lawsuit in which she is seeking to block the US government from deporting non-citizens who participated in university campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza.
Chung was not at the hearing while about a dozen supporters watched quietly from the court audience.
According to a spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security, Chung is “being sought for removal proceedings under the immigration laws” for engaging in “concerning conduct”, including being arrested at a protest.
Chung said in her lawsuit that ICE agents were looking to deport her after her arrest on March 5 while protesting Columbia University’s disciplinary actions against student protesters. Her legal team was also informed earlier this month that her permanent residence status in the US had been revoked.
Such actions form part of a “larger pattern of attempted US government repression of constitutionally protected activity and other forms of speech”, Chung’s lawsuit states and cites the Trump administration’s attempt to deport other international students in the country.
One such case is Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate from Columbia University. His attempted deportation over his role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia is one of the most high-profile among several students targeted by Trump. Held in detention, Khalil has described himself as a political prisoner detained for exercising his free speech.
Khalil is also challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to remove him from the country, and on March 10, a New York district court prohibited his deportation and extended it two days later.
Another student up for deportation is Cornell University’s Momodou Taal, who is also suing the US government for attempting to deport him.
Badar Khan Suri, an Indian student at Georgetown University, faces a similar situation, as he remains detained by the government. However, a federal judge has barred his deportation for now.
Source: Al Jazeera
Trump signs executive order calling for proof of US citizenship to vote
United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order requiring Americans to provide proof of citizenship to vote, claiming the move is necessary to “straighten out” election fraud.
Trump’s order signed on Tuesday calls on the Election Assistance Commission to require prospective voters to produce a US passport or other valid government ID when registering for federal elections.
The order also directs US states to receive all votes by election day and not count mail-in ballots that arrive after the polls have closed.
Trump said his order would “hopefully” end election fraud, while repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election in a “landslide”.
“At least this will go a long way toward ending it, there are other steps that we will be taking in the coming weeks, and we think we will be able to end up getting fair elections,” Trump said as he signed the order at the White House.
“We’ve got to straighten out our election,” Trump added.
“This country is so sick because of the election, the fake elections, and the bad elections, And we’re going to straighten it out, one way or the other.”
Trump’s order continues his long history of railing against alleged election fraud, including voting by non-citizens, which is illegal and shown in studies to be extremely rare.
Trump has often questioned the outcomes of elections that have not gone his way, including his 2020 defeat to former US President Joe Biden, which he falsely attributed to widespread voting irregularities.
Democrats and progressive groups have long opposed Republican-led efforts to require voters to produce ID on the grounds that poor and older voters may not have easy access to documents such as passports and birth certificates.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a progressive advocacy group, described Trump’s order as a “blatant attack on democracy” and “an authoritarian power grab”.
“Donald Trump’s executive order would compromise our election systems, suppress the votes of millions of Americans, especially voters of colour, and pave the way for still more Trumpian false claims of election fraud,” Gilbert said in a statement.
Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California who runs Election Law Blog, also denounced the move, saying it would disenfranchise potentially millions of voters.
“This would prevent only a tiny amount of noncitizen voter registration but stop millions of eligible voters, who do not have easy access to documents such as passports from registering to vote,” Hasen said on his blog.
“The aim here is voter suppression pure and simple,” he added.
Source: Apps Support