What the CBC Didn't Tell You
- Toni Vonk
- May 2
- 10 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
One-Sided Reporting and the IOC's Decision for Women's Sport
By Toni Vonk
On March 26, 2026, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) finally made a winning announcement. After more than two decades of policy drift that left female athletes without meaningful protection in their own category, the IOC announced a clear, enforceable sex-based eligibility policy: athletes competing in women's events at the Olympics must test negative on a one-time SRY gene screening. The decision was welcomed by women's sports advocates around the world as an overdue return to fairness, safety, and scientific integrity.
Five days later, CBC Radio Ottawa Morning chose to cover this landmark ruling — but what listeners heard was not journalism. It was a one-sided platform for one professor's personal opposition, uncontested and unchallenged.
The interview that sparked a protest
On March 31, 2026, Ottawa Morning host Rebecca Zandbergen interviewed Charlene Weaving about the IOC's new eligibility policy. Weaving is a professor of human kinetics and women's and gender studies at St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) in Nova Scotia. The interview is still available online.
Students in media studies are encouraged to listen to the piece as a masterclass in what balanced journalism is not.
Prospective StFX students should question what it actually is about women that is studied in its women and gender courses.
Not a single voice representing the majority of women in sport — those who support the IOC's policy — was included in the Ottawa Morning interview. Not one athlete. Not one women's sports advocate. Not one researcher from the growing body of peer-reviewed science documenting male physiological advantage in sport. Only Professor Weaving, whose objections to the policy went unchallenged point by point, claim by claim.
What resulted was a broadcast to listeners in the national capital region that presented the restoration of women's sports categories as a problem, and the women who fight for that restoration as problematic.
And so, recognizing the opportunity for comment, on April 11, three Capital women with a clear message for the national broadcaster geared up and showed up.
The trio positioned themselves in front of the CBC / Radio-Canada studios, first on Queen Street and then on the Sparks Street Mall, sporting boldly lettered placards that read:
"STOP LYING CBC," "SAVE XX SPORTS," and "RIP TRUST IN CBC"
A CBC slogan on the Sparks Street window behind them piped in, "It's a Canada thing."
Several passersby instantly twigged on the criticism of the Mother Corp. and gestured or voiced their agreement without ever focusing on the women’s sports issue. Unsurprising, really, as CBC’s ongoing struggle to hold on to its audience is a national story on its own.
A number of people, including a group of fit young women in athletic wear who may have been heading to the Goodlife next door, indicated their agreement with the “Save Women’s Sports” message. Even more pedestrians, both on the Sparks Street and Queen Street sides of the building, stopped to ask what their beef was. One woman enthusiastically approached with, “THANK YOU, I am so happy someone is saying something about this!”
One of the protestors explained, “I am here because regardless of whether you believe transwomen are literally women or not, the CBC is not being truthful when they report that trans people are being banned from competing in the Olympics. They are not. The IOC is banning men from competing in the women’s sports category.”
The ongoing confusion among young Canadians about what a woman is was highlighted in an exchange the protestors had with one such individual in a nearby coffee shop.
The protestors had slipped into the Bridgehead on Sparks, their signs held low, for a much-needed warm-up on that ridiculously cold April day. A young lady, actually presenting with an unpunctured face and natural-coloured long hair, tried to admonish them for their defence of women’s sports integrity by loudly quoting the tiresome mantra, “Trans Women ARE Women!” It seemed this poor kid — quite possibly a political staffer given the proximity to the building formerly known as the Langevin Block, and other parliamentary offices — was still drunk on the Kool-Aid of the queer movement.
Photo credit: Gender Dissent
The three demonstrators also made their way to Parliament Hill for a photo op in front of the Peace Tower — Canada's most recognized symbol of democratic accountability. Equally symbolic are the ever-present scaffolding and cranes, suggesting that complete rehabilitation of our crumbling corridors of power will probably never be a thing.
These Capital women demonstrated because the CBC, our publicly funded national broadcaster, had failed Canadians, yet again, and because silence in the face of bad journalism is its own kind of complicity.
“People, like us, who used to be devoted listeners, are very frustrated with the CBC,” said one of the women. “We want to see a return to balanced and objective reporting.”
The ICFS calls foul on the CBC
On April 19, the International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS) — an umbrella organization representing women's sports advocates from ten countries — published an open letter to the CBC President and Ombudsman, host Rebecca Zandbergen, and Professor Weaving herself, documenting the specific falsehoods and misleading claims that went unchallenged in the Ottawa Morning segment.
The ICFS letter identifies ten distinct claims made or implied during the interview that deserved challenge or examination, but received none. They are listed below, with the ICFS' response following in bold italics:
That SRY gene screening is ineffective and prone to false results.
Reality: The test is highly effective and accurate.
That the term "biological female" is "problematic."
Reality: This term is a clear and necessary descriptor.
That very few men and boys enter women's sports, implying it is a non-existing problem.
Reality: There is plenty of evidence showing otherwise.
That past grievances about gatekeeping protocols are relevant to current policy.
Reality: They are not.
That the SRY screen is invasive and a human rights violation.
Reality: The SRY screen is neither.
That there is no level playing field in sport, implying it is useless to enforce one.
Reality: A categorical level playing field exists for women and girls when males are excluded from their sports.
That boundary enforcement is "transphobia" damaging to women and girls.
Reality: This framing is illogical and counterproductive.
That male athletes are allowed to take extra testosterone via Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs).
Reality: Both the meaning of this comment and how it applies to female athletes is baffling, as the situation is virtually non-existent in the Olympic Games.
That the women's boxing outcome at the 2024 Paris Olympics was not a scandal.
Reality: It was a major scandal — males with XY-DSD conditions were permitted to capture gold medals by competing against female contestants with a punching advantage of up to 162%. Medical geneticists, developmental biologists, and the IOC commission agree that athletes like boxer Imane Khelif with XY-DSDs are born male — even if misassigned at birth — and develop pronounced male physical advantages over the course of childhood and puberty.
That Pierre Poilievre's support for the pro-female commentary of J.K. Rowling is "concerning."
Reality: It is not concerning — it is widely appreciated by women's sports advocates.
"The CBC failed its audience by not including someone who could speak to the majority opinion on this matter." – ICFS Open Letter
What the CBC got wrong — and why it matters
CBC's journalistic standards require balanced coverage. The corporation's own guidelines on controversial topics state that audiences deserve to hear a range of perspectives.
Women's sex-based rights in sport are not a fringe position. They are the majority position.
Poll after poll — in Canada and internationally — show that most people support female-only sports categories.
When the CBC chose to air only one perspective, it didn’t just neglect to represent the majority. It actively misrepresented the state of public opinion and the scientific record to its audience.
The CBC is our publicly funded national broadcaster. Every Canadian taxpayer — including every female athlete in this country — funds its operations. When it devotes airtime to unchallenged mischaracterizations of a policy that protects women's sports, it is using public money to work against the public it is supposed to serve.
Fifty percent of Canada’s population is female. Women and girls must therefore be equally and fairly served by our public broadcaster.
Fun fact: A 2024 survey found that only 41 percent of Canadians think the CBC "is important and should continue doing what it's doing."
History ignored
Defenders of women’s sports and athletes around the world have been blowing the whistle on unfair sport policy for years, only to be maligned and sidelined.
“Over the past two decades, women’s sports advocates have watched in silent horror as the IOC fumbled its female eligibility policy by: first, allowing castrated males into their competitions (2003); second, dropping the surgical requirement and permitting low-testosterone males who self-identify as women (2015); and, third, instituting a “Framework” policy that questioned male competitive advantage outright (2021). Each time, the outcome became worse for female Olympians and for IOC credibility, the latest of which was the boxing scandal at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.” – ICFS Open Letter
Even the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls got into the game that summer.
The new IOC policy is a direct response to these, and many other such situations (see Editor's Afterword below). It is not, as Professor Weaving implies, an act of cruelty toward a vulnerable population, but a necessary course correction after more than twenty years of policies that have weakened the integrity of the women’s sport category.
CBC's Ottawa Morning did not tell its audience any of this.
The IOC's Policy on the Protection of the Female (Women’s) Category in Olympic Sport doesn't punish anyone. It restores the integrity of a sports category that specifically exists to give women and girls a fair chance to compete, to win, and to be celebrated.
The Canadian context, scientific solutions and available expertise
The ICFS letter to CBC leadership makes a powerful case grounded in the actual text of the IOC policy, in international human rights law, the Fundamental Principles of the Olympic Charter, and — critically for Canadian readers — the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act.
The ICFS clarifies that the new IOC policy does not violate human rights. It upholds them. It also clarifies that allowing males to participate in women's sports is itself sex discrimination under Canadian law.
ICFS also makes a pointed observation about the science: the SRY gene cheek-swab test that the new policy requires is quick, discreet, accurate, and minimally intrusive. It is not the invasive, discredited sex-testing of the past. Characterizing it as such — as the Ottawa Morning interview did — is factually misleading.
The ICFS letter names five qualified experts who could readily provide the perspective the CBC failed to include:
· Dr. Emma Hilton (UK),
· Nancy Hogshead-Makar (USA),
· Cathy Devine (UK),
· Fiona McAnena (UK), and
· Canada’s own, Dr. Linda Blade.
The CBC has no shortage of credible voices to call. It simply chose not to call any of them.
When women showed up outside CBC Ottawa headquarters to demonstrate their complaint, our national broadcaster with the mandate to serve all Canadians, had nothing to say.
But we do.
Photo credit: A protestor
What you can do
File your own complaint with the CBC Ombudsman at ombud@cbc.ca. Be specific and civil and cite the March 31 Ottawa Morning interview. The more complaints the Ombudsman receives, the more seriously the matter is taken.
Share this article and the ICFS Open Letter. Visibility matters. The more Canadians who know about this segment and about the formal complaint, the harder it becomes for the CBC to ignore.
Support the International Consortium on Female Sport. Visit icfsport.org to learn more about their work and how to support it.
Check out Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights. caWsbar is a cross-Canada, non-partisan coalition of women and male allies working together to preserve the rights and protections of women and girls, as enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Photo credit: Gender Dissent
The ICFS letter referenced in this article is published in full on the ICFS website. The CBC Ottawa Morning interview with Professor Weaving aired March 31, 2026, and is available here.
AFTERWORD
Balancing perspectives
Here's an alternative point of view:
Veronica Ivy, who also has gone by the trans moniker Rachel McKinnon, said in a 2019 interview on CBC’s The National:
“I hope that by the time an athlete who's trans gets in the Olympics, that we celebrate that and not revisit this debate over whether it's fair or not,” and,
“These fears that trans women are a threat to women's sports are irrational fears of trans women — which is the dictionary definition of transphobia. And we need to call it what it is.”
Of course, the response to such gaslighting is that it is entirely rational to be suspicious of and angry with men disrespecting women’s and girls’ personal and instinctive boundaries, by forcing themselves into our private spaces, shelters, activities and sports categories, and by usurping our awards and titles. And because this is a rational fear, it is, therefore, NOT a phobia.
And also, a lot of shit has happened in the past few years.
Solidarity according to Rapinoe
Jennifer Sey, former US gymnastics champion, business executive, and advocate for women and children, created this XX-XY Athletics video in response to women’s soccer star, Megan Rapinoe’s bizarre criticism of the IOC decision. The video features many unmistakable and hulking men who have stolen awards and opportunities from women.
Rapinoe — who greatly benefitted from an era when girls and women did not have to compete against boys and men on the soccer pitch — appears entirely willing, nay, eager, to throw our daughters under the bus and to deny them the opportunities that she herself enjoys as an elite athlete.
Rapinoe should perhaps grasp the parallel between being penalized for a handball and being pilloried as a handmaid.
Recent resistance — UVIC guest lecturer heckled by reality
This month, Joanna Harper, a transgender-identifying man, was invited to guest lecture at the University of Victoria by the Chair in Transgender Studies, Aaron Devor.
“Joanna Harper is a medical physicist who has written extensively on gender and sport. She has been an expert advisor to many international sports federations, including the International Olympic Committee, on matters relating to gender variance and sport. Harper has been racing at a relatively high level for over forty years—first in the men’s category, and for the last twelve years in the women’s category.” —Google Books biography
Listen to on-the-spot recordings (Parts 1 and 2) of an exchange between Joanna Harper and @Women_Exist in which they talk about sex.
She: Women created female sport for female people. Female people are a category. A category of sex. Not a performance category. ... My question is, do you believe that female people can have anything to themselves, without male people?
He: So, as I said, I believe that trans women are a subcategory of all women and belong in women's spaces with them.
She: They're male.
He: Heh! Again, we disagree on that. Can we just leave it at that?
Reported one day later
A “6-foot-plus biological male, competing in the 2026 Canadian Armed Forces National Women’s Volleyball Championship, left one player reeling after a vicious spike straight to the face, highlighting the unfair physical advantage in women’s military sports." — Juno News
See also
SheWon.Org, “dedicated to archiving the achievements of female athletes who were displaced by males in women’s sporting events and other types of competitions expressly for women,” and
HeCheated.org where they “call out these male athletes and expose the damage that they have each caused to women and girls in sports.”
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