On 26 March, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced a new policy that ensures female Olympic sports categories will be reserved for actual female athletes, as opposed to trans-identified men. Under the new policy, women will be required to prove their eligibility with a cheek swab or blood test—a simple one-time procedure that’s less intrusive than the drug-testing regimens that Olympians have submitted to for decades.

The new policy will be warmly greeted by the substantial majority of ordinary people—on both sides of the political spectrum—who embrace the common-sense view that men should not be allowed to steal roster and podium spots from women. As the IOC notes in its new policy document, at high levels of competition,

there is a 10–12 percent male performance advantage in most running and swimming events… a 20+ percent male performance advantage in most throwing and jumping events, [and a] male performance advantage [that] can be greater than 100 percent in events that involve explosive power, e.g. in collision, lifting and punching sports.

Unfortunately, this common-sense majority view isn’t the fashionable one—at least not in Canada, where former prime minister Justin Trudeau turned the slogan “trans women are women” into state policy. Even now that Trudeau’s gone, his social-justice postures are still embraced by Canadian activists and academics; many of whom went apoplectic in recent months, following the decision of Alberta’s provincial government to finally step in and protect female sports categories—something Ottawa has refused to do.

And with a disturbing rise in anti-transgender hate here in Canada and around the world recently, I want to be very clear about one more thing: Trans women are women. We will always stand up to this hate—whenever and wherever it occurs.

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) March 8, 2023

Numerous researchers have tried to argue that the male competitive advantage in sports is a “myth.” Egale, a state-funded group mandated to support what Canada now calls “2SLGBTQI people,” suggested that excluding trans-identified men from female sports is really just a “grotesque” (and possibly even prurient) pretext to scrutinise young women’s bodies. Meanwhile, the CBC, Canada’s state-funded national broadcaster, has spent years instructing Canadians that the whole idea of separating humans into male and female categories is fuzzy to begin with—juxtaposing discussion of a “hermaphroditic ginger plant” and “sex-changing clownfish” with social-justice lectures from (human) “trans historians.”

Thankfully, Trudeau’s successor, Mark Carney, is much more interested in boosting trade, building pipelines, and strengthening Canada’s military than appearing on Canada’s Drag Race or babbling about the inspiring feats of “non-binary” athletes. And it was notable that when the IOC announced its new policy, the official response from Carney’s Secretary of State for Sport—a 2004 Olympic gold-medal sprint kayaker named Adam van Koeverden—was so muted and restrained as to be effectively meaningless.

Statement from Secretary of State van Koeverden on the International Olympic Committee decision regarding transgender women athletes

The Government of Canada believes in a sport system that provides opportunities for all Canadians, including the transgender community, to participate in sport and excel without discrimination

Government of CanadaCanadian Heritage

“We are aware of the International Olympic Committee’s recent policy decision,” van Koeverden wrote in a media release. “We will work closely with our sport partners to review the impact of this decision… Our priority is to ensure there is a path forward for sport in Canada that preserves the integrity and fairness of sport categories while promoting equal opportunities and respecting human rights.”

Van Koeverden pretty much said nothing, in other words. But given the garment-rending one might have expected from the genderwang clique that Trudeau had in his cabinet (one of whom held an all-ages drag show on Parliament hill back in 2023), this nothing-burger of a press release seemed like a win.

Male or Female: There’s Nothing In Between

Since the dawn of our species, the evolution of two distinct sexes has been fundamental to human reproduction. There is no such thing as a ‘sex spectrum.’

QuilletteZachary A. Elliott

It now appears that van Koeverden was biting his tongue on his boss’s orders. On Facebook, the Secretary of State for Sport went on something of a rant, accusing the IOC’s defenders of succumbing to the “notion that scary drag queens are winning women’s volleyball games”—an idea that he called “a stupid conservative pseudo fantasy.”

Van Koeverden also claimed that efforts to protect female sports categories are actually misogynistic, because they are about “policing women’s bodies.” And lest readers accuse him of mansplaining this whole issue, he said that he constantly meets female athletes who say they agree with him.

🇨🇦 Secretary of State (Sport) @vankayak has not read Devine/Howe - actual @SportCanada_EN research? While Adam enjoys his status as an Olympic gold medallist, 🇨🇦 Melissa Bishop lost her chance coming 4th behind 3 male DSD athletes in 2016. That’s reality, not stupid fantasy Adam. pic.twitter.com/VbNcYTSJnO

— Alison Sydor 😈👻🐸 (@AlisonSydor) March 30, 2026

Given that van Koeverden’s department controls a $323 million budget that gets doled out to sports programs across Canada, this latter claim sounds plausible: No doubt, subordinates and grant supplicants are more than happy to tell the boss just how wonderful his opinions are on a vast multitude of issues—including this one.

That said, it’s worth revisiting that magical moment at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens when van Koeverden won the Olympic gold medal that would, in time, yield a high-profile public career.

His specialty event was the 500m sprint kayak, in which athletes use double-bladed paddles to propel narrow-beamed racing canoes. In the final round of the 2004 Olympic individual (K1) male competition, van Koeverden won with a time of 1:37.9, a half second faster than second-place Nathan Baggaley of Australia. The bronze medalist, Ian Wynne of the UK, was just a tenth of a second slower. Three other racers also broke the 1:40 mark.

The Olympics also feature a women’s 500m sprint kayak event. And if the male athletic difference were indeed a “myth”—as many purported experts pretend to believe—one would expect the winning times in the two categories to be similar. But of course, they’re not. The 2004 gold medal winner in the women’s 500m sprint kayak was Natasa Janic of Hungary, with a time of 1:47.1—more than nine seconds (or almost ten percent) slower than van Koeverden.

Which makes sense, given the enormous physical advantages that men have over women in a sport such as this, as summarised in the recent IOC policy statement.