GENEVA (AP) - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced a new eligibility policy that excludes transgender women from participating in women's events at the Olympics. This decision aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order regarding sports, ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. The IOC expanded its eligibility rules, declaring that "eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females.” To confirm this status, athletes will be required to undergo a mandatory gene test at least once in their careers.
While the exact number of transgender women competing at an Olympic level remains uncertain, it is noted that no transgender women participated in the 2024 Paris Summer Games. However, weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, who transitioned from male to female, competed in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but did not win a medal.
The IOC emphasized that the new eligibility policy, effective from the Los Angeles Olympics in July 2028, aims to "protect fairness, safety and integrity in the female category." It is also important to note that this rule is not retroactive and does not apply to grassroots or recreational sports programs. The IOC's Olympic Charter states that access to play sports is a human right.
During its executive board meeting, the IOC released a comprehensive 10-page policy document that also addresses issues regarding female athletes with medical conditions known as differences in sex development (DSD), such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya.
IOC President Kirsty Coventry stated in an online news conference that the organization needed a clear policy in contrast to the previous practice of advising individual sports governing bodies, each of which had their own rules. “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry commented. She argued that allowing biological males to compete in the female category would not be fair.
Coventry, who made this review of "protecting the female category" one of her early major decisions since becoming the first woman to lead the IOC in 132 years, noted that establishing a clear policy was vital amid previous controversies surrounding eligibility in sports.
Prior to the 2024 Paris Olympics, several top-tier sports—track and field, swimming, and cycling—had already excluded transgender women who had undergone male puberty. Semenya, assigned female at birth and having higher testosterone levels than what is typical, has faced long-standing challenges to track and field's regulations regarding eligibility, which the European Court of Human Rights ruled she won partially but did not overturn.
The IOC’s new document highlights research conducted on the physical advantages typically associated with being born male, which are believed to persist. According to the IOC, "males experience three significant testosterone peaks," giving them advantages in sports requiring strength, power, or endurance. The mandatory gene screening will detect the SRY gene, typically associated with male sex development.
This new policy is expected to face criticism from human rights advocates and activist groups regarding the mandatory gender screening approach. A legal challenge at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is likely, as previous athletes such as Dutee Chand and Semenya have contested eligibility rules related to their hormone levels.
One of the women’s boxing gold medalists involved in the gender eligibility debate in Paris, Lin Yu-ting from Taiwan, has passed her gene test and is eligible to compete. The World Boxing governing body confirmed this, while another gold champion, Imane Khelif of Algeria, has expressed intentions to take a gene test for eligibility in Los Angeles.
The IOC’s report indicates that biological males may hold a performance advantage of "10-12% in most running and swimming events," with even greater disparities in explosive sports, including boxing and other striking disciplines.
In the United States, Trump's executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports" was signed in February 2022, asserting that it would deny visas to certain athletes aiming to compete in the 2028 Olympics and threaten to withdraw funding from organizations allowing transgender athletes to participate in women's sports. Following this, the U.S. Olympic committee updated its guidance to comply with the White House's directives, with the administration applauding the IOC's recent decision as a result of this order.
