Last week, Ben Rothenberg broke the story that the WTA will require players to undergo genetic sex screening to maintain their eligibility, prompting several questions that were sent to the tennis mailbag. Context matters. The WTA’s policy went into effect on July 21, and will require players to submit to a one-time screening for the SRY gene to participate on tour. This can be done via saliva, cheek swab or blood sample. The WTA policy states: “‘Biological male’ means an individual who, regardless of their legal sex or gender identity, has an SRY gene and therefore has or previously had testes or streak testes.”
This is essentially the same policy the International Olympic Committee has adopted going forward, so any player with Olympic ambitions was going to submit to this anyway. (And, it was impressed upon me, this is a one-time screening, so tennis players won’t have to go through this again for the Olympics.) The WTA, however, is the first major women’s sports league to go here.
