Gauff on the tennis floor test: “This is a reason for bullying”

Tennis player Coca Gauff supported mandatory genetic testing on the women's tour, but warned: the topic can easily be turned into a weapon against transgender athletes. At the same time, a similar controversy broke out in the WNBA — there it was fueled by basketball player Sophie Cunningham.

What kind of test and where did it all start

From July 21, the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) obliged all tennis players on the tour, without exception, to undergo a one-time genetic screening for the SRY gene — a section of DNA that is usually located on the Y chromosome and triggers male-type development in the embryo. Formally, the test is described as “determining biological sex”: a swab from the cheek, blood or saliva, the result is for the entire career.

The solution is not tennis in nature, notes xrust. The WTA simply adjusted to the rules that the International Olympic Committee approved in March for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, and those, in turn, are synchronized with the decree of US President Donald Trump on sports. World athletics has been following the same principle for a year now, followed by boxing and alpine skiing.

Gauff: for justice, but against witch hunts

22-year-old Gauff was asked to comment on the innovation after defeating Kayla Day at a tournament in Toronto. She answered cautiously: she rather agreed with the very idea of ​​protecting fair competition in women’s sports. But with a side effect — no: the topic, according to the athlete, is too convenient for those who really don’t care about justice, but want to find a reason to find fault with transgender people in general.

The position is outlined exactly on the edge: not to deny the right of leagues to introduce such rules, but also not to pretend that the discussion is taking place in a vacuum, and not against the backdrop of an already heated political topic.

What does basketball have to do with it

The controversy spread to the WNBA, where it was provoked by Indiana guard Sophie Cunningham, who told ESPN that she did not want young female athletes to have to compete with “biological males” in the locker room. The statement sparked protests from fans at the team's away matches — in Portland, Chicago, Minnesota and Seattle, the stands greeted the players with posters.

An indicative episode occurred in Minneapolis: the head coach of the local team, Cheryl Reeve, spoke specifically with Cunningham before the game. Both described the conversation as without mutual accusations — just two different views. Reeve later clarified that she was confused not by the fact of the discussion, but by the wording: the hint that transgender athletes in the locker room pose a threat, in her opinion, sounds unfair to real people, and not to an abstract category.

Why a gene test is not news, but a return of the old

It is worth recalling history here, Western publications almost never write about it, but for the Russian reader it is especially relevant. Chromosomal control at the Olympics was first introduced back in 1968 in Mexico City, and since the early 1990s they switched to a test for the SRY gene. The system was curtailed before the 2000 Games in Sydney: geneticists and medical commissions then proved that the test unfairly screens out healthy women with rare features of sexual development, in whom the presence of the gene does not provide any real athletic advantage.

It is curious that the first “gender checks” at international competitions in the 1960s also hit Soviet athletes hard: sisters Tamara and Irina Press, multiple Olympic champions in athletics, chose to end their careers rather than undergo a humiliating visual examination at that time, which then replaced genetics. Sixty years later, history is literally repeating itself — only instead of an examination, now there is a swab from the oral cavity.

By the way, genetics itself also has questions for the new round of tests. Andrew Sinclair, the scientist who discovered the SRY gene, directly objects to its use as the sole criterion: the presence of the gene, he says, says nothing about whether it works at all, whether testes are formed or whether testosterone is produced. The WTA formally left a loophole for female athletes with certain developmental conditions, such as complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, in which a person with a male set of chromosomes develops a female type. But to get it, you will have to collect medical certificates and prove your right again and again.

What's the result

World sports are quickly lining up in one line: athletics, boxing, alpine skiing, and now tennis — all are moving from hormonal limits to a genetic test as the final criterion. For organizations, this is a way to close the issue once and for all without litigation. For athletes like Gauff, it’s a reason to remember that it’s all too easy to hide behind the phrase “protecting fair play” a completely different agenda.

Sources:
reuters.com
espn.com
insidethegames.biz

Xrust Gauff on the floor test in tennis: “This is a reason for bullying”