Transgender Diversity at International Olympic Committee
Organizational Overview
International Olympic Committee was started in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas to organize winter and summer Olympics (Chappelet, 2008). IOC is an independent organization that is found in Lausanne in the country, Switzerland (Chappelet, 2008). It controls over 206 National Olympic Committees across the globe as per 2016. Thomas Bach currently heads the sports organization from Germany, who took over from Jacques Rogge from Belgium. IOC is obligated to organize Olympic Games across the world, and in the year 2009, the United Nations Assembly recognized the organization and granted it a Permanent Status. International Olympic Committee performs various functions such as enhance Olympics across the globe and guide the Olympic movement, conduct regular celebrations of Olympics, support athletes, and various sports organizations around the world, among many others.
Executive summary
IOC has several roles to play in the world Olympics. Its primary role is to establish and advance the rules and principles entailed in the Olympic Charter. IOC formulates the ideology of Olympism that forms the regulations, values, and ethics that define the Olympic movement and games across the globe. Further, IOC is mandated to conduct regular celebrations of Olympics, support athletes, and various sports organizations around the world. It was also formed to stop any form of discrimination that may occur in the Olympic movements. Lastly, IOC has an obligation to encourage, promote, and support women and transgender in sports activities. In its policies, IOC promotes equality of men and women in sports.
Mission
International Olympic Committee’s mission is to enhance Olympics across the globe and guide the Olympic movement.
Goals and Objectives
The primary goal of IOC is to use sports to educate the young generation to help create a peaceful and better world. By engaging the youths in sports activities without any form of discrimination, IOC instills the Olympic spirit that helps develop mutual understanding and consequently creates the spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play.
Transgender in sports
Diversity is essential in sports activities, especially to promote equity in athletics. Due to dynamism in the world today, sports activities need to be designed in a way that accommodates people from different backgrounds such as gender, sex, religion, culture, age, color, race, a nation, among other diversity elements. Inclusivity in sports is undoubtedly vital in promoting peace and co-existence. When everyone is feels included despite their backgrounds, believes, norms, values, and ethics, then the spirit of Olympic, solidarity, friendship, and fair play is initiated. One of the current diversity issues that have brought a lot of controversies is the involvement of transgender people in athletics. Transgender people are a group of individuals who have their gender identity and expression different from their biological sex at birth.
Key points and Rationale
- Transsexual women’s participation in the Olympics has controversies based on hormonal composition, physiological and physical appearance and pre-transition.
- In the past decades, transgender people who are involved in athletics are required strict to their assigned sex identity during birth or conduct sex verification testing as laid down by IOC.
- Many cases of inequality and discrimination in sports have been noted
- Since 1975, transgender participation in sports has increased at an alarming rate changing the general perception that sports are meant for men and not women.
The world has evolved, and many transformations have taken place in all aspects of human life. There is a need to acknowledge the existence of transgender people and accept them as part of sportsmen. As the world shifts to a brighter century, it is important to encourage equal opportunity for transgender in sports activities. Considering changes in the sports world today, everyone should have equal opportunity to nature their talents.
Literature Review
Studies show that transgender participation in sports activities emerged in 1975 when renowned sportsmen such as Renee Richards came into the limelight (Chalip, 2006). Currently, some transgender people have finished in many recognized sporting events despite their sexual orientation. Despite the progress, the participation of women and transgender in athletics and other sports is still a controversial issue since they face various kinds of discrimination. Transgender persons have experienced several challenges, such as being judged based on their hormonal composition, physiological and physical factors, and pre-transition. According to IOC, transgender athletes have to strict with their original sex identity given during birth. Further, they have to undergo sex verification testing. International Olympics Committee Medical Commission formulated new regulations guiding for sex reassignment surgery. This was meant to change transgender gonadectomy and genitalia (Tomlinson, 2019). The IOC under new leadership has made several changes to ensure the inclusivity of transgender people in sports. This was evident during the 2019 world Olympics when IOC passed in the convention that transgender people are only required to produce signed documents declaring their sex identity from the Olympics medical committee to participate in their respective sports activities.
Despite the efforts made by the IOC to be more diverse and inclusive in sports activities, there are still some problems that need to be solved. For example, C gender inequality and sexual harassment are still common. In this case, coaches are noted to harass and assault women and transgender people. Due to the perception that sports activities are for men and not for vulnerable women, the females have suffered several incidences of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, among other evils that do not promote inclusivity and diversity. In another view, the media is also involved in spreading stereotypical views in the sporting arena. Such actions need to stop to bring back sanity in the sports field. International Olympic Committee is obligated to bring back sanity in sports and create a friendly, inclusive, and diverse Olympic environment.
Theberge (1991) noted that the solution to transgender diversity issues relies on the ability of IOC to perform its functions. Among the primary role of IOC is the duty to ensure participation in Olympics without discrimination. The organization is mandated to act against discrimination in any form. It is also obligated to formulate and implement policies that enhance and promote equity in Olympic sports to create equity. To ensure that IOC performs its functions efficiently, the organization must get the resources necessary for its worldwide operations. IOC requires enough funds, personnel with various skills and knowledge to help run its activities, equipment, and access to different countries. The member National Olympic Committees need to coordinate properly with the head office to ensure easy access to information about cases of discrimination. Efficient communication channels would also help in collaborative equity policy formulation and implementation. By engaging the youths in sports activities without any form of discrimination, IOC instills the Olympic spirit that helps develop mutual understanding and consequently creates the spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play
Hoye, Smith, Nicholson & Stewart (2015) argue that another course of action relies on the level of government involvement in sports activities. If various governments would integrate their diversity and inclusivity policies and work together to achieve diversity as a unit in sports, then important steps would be realized. By tightening sports rules and regulations, states can play a vital role in enhancing inclusivity and diversity in sports. Through government programs, cultural diversity awareness can be created to promote inclusivity. Intercultural communication and adaption may help reduce the rate of discrimination among sportspeople.
Pros and Cons of proposed solutions
Increased funding of IOC is important since it will increase the rate of operations and efficiency of running the organization’s daily business (Tomlinson, 2019). With enough financial resources, IOC can implement and enforce anti-discriminatory policies and protect the interest of transgender people in sports. Nevertheless, increased funding is associated with a high rate of embezzlement of funds and corruption in the top leadership. Government involvement in sports leads to an influx of more resources and monitoring even though it increased bureaucracy.
Recommendations
Transgender deserve a fair competition. Besides, they have a right to the same opportunities to exploit their abilities like other people. IOC can use sports to educate the young generation to help create a peaceful and better world. The best solution is to increase state involvement in sports, especially the Olympics. Apart from IOC diversity policies, each government should formulate and implement its rules that protect the interest of transgender people in sports to enhance equity, diversity, and inclusivity.
References
Chalip, L. (2006). Toward a distinctive sport management discipline. Journal of sport management, 20(1), 1-21.
Chappelet, J. L. (2008). The International Olympic Committee and the Olympic system: The governance of world sport. Routledge. Hoye, R., Smith, A. C., Nicholson, M., & Stewart, B. (2015). Sport management: principles and applications. Routledge.
Theberge, N. (1991). Reflections on the body in the sociology of sport. Quest, 43(2), 123-134.
Tomlinson, A. (2019). Sociology of Sport. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Sociology, 460-476.