Gran Canaria Omaira Perdomo (center), the first transsexual in the women's volleyball league, celebrates a point with her teammates Elvira Urquijo / EFE

The Higher Sports Council (CSD) does not want to enter to assess the effects on competition and sports practice that the future

Law for the real and effective equality of trans people may have

until its paragraphs are not more than a draft, and the prudence of the department chaired by Irene Lozano is understood, since the decision that trans people (man to woman or woman to man) over 16 years of age participate "according to their registered sex" collides with the regulations of all international federations that rely on the recommendations of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which require a series of conditions for men to transition to women.

It could be the case that a trans woman is proclaimed champion of Spain in a sport and is prohibited from participating in international competitions, in which the search for equality between participants to guarantee a fair competition is the first objective.

In international competitions, direct sex verification is no longer practiced, which is also prohibited by the draft law - in 1946 it was based on visual examination and until 2004 transgender women who wanted to participate in the Olympic Games were required both hormonal therapy and surgery to remove external sexual attributes;

then he went to the study of chromosomes, more discreet, although also prone to error, since there were athletes with male chromosomes who, however, had not benefited from the rise in testosterone, because they were insensitive.

The latest IOC regulation, which already eliminates the need for surgical operations, establishes that whoever wants to participate as a woman must declare herself a woman, and that she cannot change gender for at least four years to practice sports.

In addition, it sets a cap of 10 nanograms per milliliter of testosterone the maximum that a woman can have to be able to participate in female tests.

That will require them to take medication to block the so-called male hormone, that of strength and beard.

For women transitioning to men there is no requirement.

Some international federations, such as athletics, tennis and cycling, are even more strict than the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and instead of requiring trans women to have testosterone levels of 10 nanograms per milliliter to participate in the female category they have lowered that limit in half, to just five nanograms.

And others, such as the international rugby union, strictly prohibits transsexuals from playing with women.

Athletics has set that limit of five nanograms for intersex women (those with a different degree of sexual development) who, even though they are biologically female, are hyperandrogenic and produce more testosterone than is considered normal.

This is the case of the South African Caster Semenya, who has been prohibited from participating in tests between 400m and the mile unless she takes medication to reduce her testosterone.

The decision, which affects several 800m athletes, mostly African, has reached the United Nations, which has described it as discriminatory and has called for its withdrawal.

For the doctor and researcher from the University of Vigo María José Martínez Patiño, at 16 there would be no problems, because the man who has become a woman has not yet had time to get involved in specific and demanding high performance training, and It takes several years to perfect techniques, improve muscle learning that requires millions of repetitions of a gesture, or to develop muscle mass.

“But, of course, an athlete, at a 110-meter hurdles, for example, who has been in the elite for several years cannot be allowed to compete as a woman in a 100-meter hurdles event, with lower and closer hurdles, because it would sweep away, even if it was not one of the best, and let alone a high jumper who is bad as a man, 2.15m, for example, as a woman she would jump several centimeters above the world record, or a long jumper ... " , says Martínez Patiño, that if as an athlete she suffered the old methods of sex verification - she was suspended by a male chromosome - as a researcher she has published in

The Lancet, she

has worked for the rights of intersex women and is part of the expert committee of the IOC that elaborates the regulations.

The value of testosterone

"The regulations of a country that affect high-level sport cannot conflict with the international norms that regulate sport, because they harm its athletes," he says.

“And international standards are constantly evolving.

The latest IOC dates from 2015, but we have been working for years for new ones in which the decision to accept a transsexual in a competition is not based solely on hormonal values ​​”.

Martínez Patiño talks about the concept of muscle memory and how in the future it will be necessary to analyze case by case, with an investigation to find out how many years a person has been training at a high level and benefiting from a high testosterone that allowed them more training sessions with more loads, or better recovery.

"Because testosterone is not just about strength," he says.

Canarian volleyball player Omaira Perdomo was the first transgender woman to reach the elite of a sport in Spain.

It happened four years ago, when the regulations of his federation still required surgical treatments and hormonal treatments, a whole legal torment that the new law wants to eliminate, although it clashes with the common sense of sports competition, which is based on emotion and uncertainty, daughters of equality.