Dr Sonja Erikainen is a research scholar at the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society at the University of Edinburgh, where they undertake research and teach on social and ethical issues around the science-society relationship, and gender and sports.

Their research has focused on the relationship between gender, sport, and science, and they have expertise in particular on gender diversity, and intersex / DSD and transgender eligibility regulations in international sports.

After completing their PhD, which was partially funded by the International Olympic Committee and focused on the evolution of gender verification policies in the Olympic Games and international athletics, Dr Erikainen has led several research projects and published widely on social and ethical issues around gender diversity, sport, and science governance. These include the UK government funded Sex Binaries, Performance Enhancement and Elite Sports research project and two projects on the regulation of hormones. Erikainen has also worked as an advisor on a range of issues including sports policy, public communication, and science governance.

 Sonja Erikainen

Dr Alun Williams has research interests that originated in muscle physiology and nutrition, which then spread to the genetics underlying inter-individual variability in sport performance. He has a PhD from the University of Birmingham and works at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) where he heads the Sports Genomics Laboratory. Alun also has honorary positions at Swansea University and University College London. He has recently authored Expert Statements for the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences on scientific aspects of the eligibility criteria for trans and DSD athletes in sport. He served as an Independent Expert Witness at CAS in 2019.

 Alun Williams

Chris Mosier is a trailblazing athlete, coach, and founder of TransAthlete.com. In 2020 he made history by becoming the first transgender athlete to compete in the Olympic Trials in the gender with which they identify. Prior to that, in 2015 he became the first openly trans man to make a Men's US National Team. Following the national championship race, he was instrumental in getting the International Olympic Committee policy on transgender athletes changed, and in June 2016 he became the first trans athlete to compete in a world championship race under the new rules.

He has been called "the man who changed the Olympics" by the BBC and New York Magazine. Chris is a six-time member of Team USA, representing the United States in the sprint triathlon and the short course and long course duathlon, a two-time Men's National Champion, and a Men's All-American.

Chris is also a nationally recognized four-time Ironman triathlete, and inductee into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame. He is sponsored by Nike and has been featured in multiple global Nike campaigns. Chris has been featured in publications including ESPN The Magazine, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and more.

Chris's website transathlete.com is is a source of relevant information on transgender athletes in sport. Chris has written and advocated for change in policies from the high school level to national governing bodies and professional leagues. He has become one of the leading grassroots organizers against the current wave of anti-trans legislation across the United States, and when not fighting the good fight, he mentors transgender and non-binary athletes around the world in hopes that he can live by his motto of "be who you needed when you were younger."

Hugh Torrance is co-President of the European Gay & Lesbian Sports Federation, representing the interests of more than 22,000 LGBTIQ+ athlete members across Europe. Torrance delivers education sessions on LGBTIQ+ equality and inclusion in sport and physical activity at European level and beyond. As Executive Director of Scotland’s LGBTIQ+ sports charity LEAP Sports, Torrance works as an expert advisor on LGBTIQ+ policy issues, and in doing so works closely with a range of Sports Governing Bodies holding direct positions on many of their equality advisory boards and groups as well as chairing Scotland’s National LGBTI Sports Group bringing together Government, sports bodies and NGOs. Torrance led the UK arm of the 2019 European research Outsport looking at experiences of LGBTIQ+ people in sport.

Dr Richard Budgett has been the Medical and Scientific Director of the IOC since November 2012. Before that he was Chief Medical Officer for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games from 2007 to 2012. He was Director of Medical Services for the British Olympic Association from 1994 to 2007 and has been Chief Medical Officer with Team GB at the summer and winter Olympic Games in Atlanta, Nagano, Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens and Turin. He was team doctor to the Great Britain men’s rowing team from 2005 to 2008 and was Governing Body Medical Officer and team doctor for the Great Britain Bobsleigh Association from 1990 to 2007 attending the Olympic Winter Games in Albertville in 1992 and Lillehammer in 1994.

He was a member of the IOC Medical Commission at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010. After completing a Diploma in Sports Medicine at the London Hospital he worked as a Medical Officer at the Olympic Medical Institute (previously British Olympic Medical Centre) from 1989 to 2012. In 2003 he was appointed lead physician for the South East region of the English Institute of Sport (EIS) based at Bisham Abbey.

Since 1987 he has conducted research into the problem of fatigue and underperformance and has published widely on the subject of Overtraining or Unexplained Underperformance Syndrome (UUPS). In 2005 he was appointed to the World Anti Doping Agency list committee, which he chaired from 2010 to 2012. He was Chairman of the British Rowing Medical Committee for 20 years and won an Olympic Gold Medal in rowing in Los Angeles in 1984.

In his capacity as FIFA’s Head of Human Rights & Anti-Discrimination, Andreas coordinates FIFA’s work to embed respect for human rights throughout organisation’s operations and relationships. Since joining FIFA in September 2016, Andreas has, amongst other things, led the work to develop FIFA’s human rights policy, and the human rights-related bidding and hosting requirements implemented since November 2017. He also coordinates the development and operationalisation of wider human rights due diligence processes in relation to FIFA’s competitions.

Before joining FIFA, Andreas worked at the Business & Peace Programme of the Swiss peacebuilding organization swisspeace. In that capacity, he amongst other things supported companies in implementing conflict-sensitive business practices, worked with Swiss government entities in the development of the Swiss national action plan on business and human rights, and supported the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights in its work on national action plans.

Andreas holds a PhD in Political Science in which he assesses how international business and human rights norms shape state policies on responsible business practice. He also holds Masters degrees in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and in Peace and Security Studies from the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg.

Policy and Research Coordinator for the World Players Association, a sector of UNI Global Union, which represents 85,000 players through over 100 player associations in more than 60 countries. Besides his work for the World Players Association, he is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg with a research focus on the human rights expectations towards FIFA and IOC in the context of Mega-Sporting Events.

Kyle Knight is a senior researcher on health, gender, and sexuality at Human Rights Watch. Previously, he was a fellow at the Williams Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law, and a Fulbright scholar in Nepal. As a journalist he worked for Agence France-Presse in Nepal and for the UN’s humanitarian news service, reporting from Burma, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia. He has previously worked for UNAIDS, the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, and in the children’s rights and health and human rights divisions at Human Rights Watch. He sits on the editorial board of the Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health Journal, and the advisory group of the Women’s Refugee Commission’s sexual violence project.

He studied cultural anthropology at Duke University and public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Carole Oglesby has been in the professoriate for fifty years. She earned a PhD in Kinesiology at Purdue University in 1969 and a PhD in Counseling at Temple University in 1999. 

Carole’s scholarly career has been devoted to growth and development in two areas; women’s/gender studies in sport and sport psychology. She has held major leadership positions in virtually all academic and advocacy organizations in these areas. She was the inaugural president of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, president National Association of Girls and Women’s Sport, Trustee of the Women’s Sport Foundation, President of Women Sport International, Co Chair for International Working Group for Women in Sport, Executive Board of the U.S. Collegiate Sports Council, U.S. Olympic Committee Board of Directors, Association for Applied Sports Psychology Health Psychology Chair and Executive Board member, former Advisory Board, Beyond Sport, Boards of Somali Women Foundation and Sheeroes of India.

She has received major awards and recognitions from many of these organizations. She was awarded the AIAW Award of Merit, NAGWS Honor Fellow and Women’s Sports Foundation Billie Jean King Award; American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Honor Award, R. Tait McKenzie Award for service outside the profession, C.D. Henry Award for service to racial and ethnic minorities. She was the first woman nominated to give the Coleman Griffith Lecture at AAASP. She was the first recipient of the Boris Planchard Medal for service to Girls and Women’s Sport in Latin America. She received the America Psychological Association Div. 47 Lifetime Achievement Award in Public Service and also the Phillip Noel Baker Research Award of the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education, Lyn Vandien Lifetime Leadership Award International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women. In 2021, she received the Applied Sport Psychology Award for Distinguished Professional Service.

Carole served as a liaison for global women’s sport advocacy community to the United Nations. As a culmination of this role, she was principle author/contributor for a UN-Division for the Advancement of Women monograph entitled Women, Gender Equality and Sport, translated in four languages and released March 2008. Having published over 50 chapters, articles, essays, five books or monographs and advised 49 successful PhD students at Temple University, her own doctoral work in counseling was a culmination of a lifetime of observation that sport, and other high performance contexts, can bring trauma as well as positive development. She is Co Chair of the WSI Task Force “Sport in a Post Binary Word”.

Andrej Pisl works as the Communications and Projects Manager at the European University Sports Association (EUSA) and the EUSA Institute, where he coordinates several social responsibility projects. He started his activities in the field of university sport in the Slovenian University Sports Association (SUSA), where he later worked as the Executive Secretary. Mr Pisl was also a national delegation member in international university sports events between 2005 and 2011 in various roles, and has been a member of the EUSA office since then. Apart from university sport, he is also active in other organisations and projects focusing on volunteering, human rights, fair play, inclusion, diversity and safety in sports for all.

 EUSA experiences

Athlete rights activist & scholar

A former badminton player, Dr Mitra is a prominent athlete rights activist and leading campaigner in the abolition of sex testing policies in women’s sport, working closely with affected athletes across Asia and Africa to enable them to address human rights violations in sports. Her work includes helping athletes communicate with local or national sport governing bodies, sport ministries and other stakeholders, as well as actively resisting unnecessary and unsolicited physical examinations and scrutiny through direct intervention. Dr Mitra has also been instrumental in assisting Indian athlete Dutee Chand to regain her rights to compete in athletics, and was one of the ten member team who testified for South African Olympian Caster Semenya at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. She has been involved with international human rights agencies in preparing reports on discrimination in sports on the basis of gender and race, most notably as co-author of a Human Rights Watch report on lived experiences of athletes facing abusive sex- testing in athletics published in December 2020. She has also taught Sport sociology at Birkbeck, University of London between 2018-2020. She is a Director and Trustee at the Centre for Sport and Human Rights.

Natalie Washington is a transgender woman and campaigner for trans rights, particularly around access to sports & treatment of trans issues by the media. As Campaign Lead for Football v Transphobia, she is working towards greater involvement of trans people in the game at all levels. She's also a footballer for Rushmoor Community FC & sits on the Hampshire FA's Inclusion Action Group, as well as running a network for transgender people in sport.

 Nathalie Washington

Pierre-Jean Vazel is a sprint and throws coach at the Metz Métropole athletics club in France. A 5th year graduate of the Beaux-Arts, he has covered 3 Olympic Games, 9 World Championships and more than 500 meetings as a coach or columnist for Le Monde and the IAAF website. Since 2004, Pierre-Jean Vazel has coached national champions from six countries (China, France, Greece, Nigeria, Senegal, Switzerland), including Olu Fasuba, who won the African record in the 100m (9.85s) and the world indoor title in the 60m, as well as Quentin Bigot, silver medallist in the hammer throw at the 2019 World Championships. Pierre-Jean Vazel is co-author of the ALTIS Foundation course and has lectured extensively on the history of sprint science and training.

Co-founder and board member of Seitenwechsel Sportverein für FrauenLesbenTrans*Inter* und Mädchen in Berlin/Germany (since 1988), board member and co-president of the European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation (1996-2006). Active in queer sports politics nationally and internationally for over 30 years. Currently spokesperson for the German Federal Trans* Association (BV Trans*) in the areas of sport and education. Professionally, Conny-Hendrik works in the Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family as a policy officer for anti-discrimination/diversity in schools, especially for gender and sexual diversity.

 Best practice Charter SeitenwechselBerlin