Transgender women athletes banned from Olympics female events by IOC

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved a groundbreaking policy on Thursday that will exclude transgender women athletes from women’s events at future Olympic Games, aligning with a U.S. executive order ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“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,” the IOC announced. The policy will require female athletes to undergo a mandatory gene test once in their career to verify eligibility.

The new rules, set to take effect for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, represent a significant shift in the IOC’s approach to gender eligibility in sports. According to the committee, the policy “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.”

IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who spearheaded the review shortly after becoming the first woman to lead the Olympic body in its 132-year history, emphasized the necessity of the change. “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” said Coventry, herself a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

The policy comes amid ongoing debates about transgender participation in women’s sports. While no transgender women competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard participated in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without winning a medal. The actual number of transgender athletes competing at Olympic levels remains unclear.

The IOC published a detailed 10-page document outlining scientific evidence that suggests being born male provides physical advantages that are retained even after gender transition. “Males experience three significant testosterone peaks: In utero, in mini-puberty of infancy and beginning in adolescent puberty through adulthood,” the document explained, adding that this gives males “individual sex-based performance advantages in sports and events that rely on strength, power and/or endurance.”

The new rules will also restrict female athletes with differences in sex development (DSD), including South African runner Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion who has higher testosterone levels than the typical female range. Semenya previously won a European Court of Human Rights judgment in her legal challenge to track and field’s rules, though it did not overturn them.

Coventry insisted that the policy development preceded the current U.S. administration’s stance. “This was a priority for me way before President Trump came into his second term,” she said. “There’s not been any pressure (on) us to deliver anything from anybody outside of the Olympic Movement.”

Nevertheless, the policy aligns with President Trump’s executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February 2023, which threatened to deny visas to certain athletes attempting to compete at the L.A. Olympics and to “rescind all funds” from organizations allowing transgender athletes in women’s sports. The White House welcomed the IOC’s decision, with spokesman Davis Ingle calling it “common sense and long overdue.”

The IOC’s stance follows similar policies already adopted by several major sports governing bodies. Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, track and field, swimming, and cycling had already excluded transgender women who had experienced male puberty from women’s competitions.

The mandatory gender screening method chosen by the IOC involves testing for “the SRY gene, a segment of DNA typically found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero.” While the committee described this as “the most accurate and least intrusive method currently available,” the approach may face criticism from human rights experts and activist groups.

The new policy could face legal challenges at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. Previous eligibility rules have been contested by athletes including India’s Dutee Chand and Semenya, and any new case would likely examine the scientific underpinnings of the IOC’s research.

The women’s boxing controversy at the Paris Olympics partly influenced the urgency of this policy change. Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, one of the gold medalists at the center of gender eligibility questions, has reportedly passed her gene test and can return to competition according to the World Boxing governing body. Algeria’s Imane Khelif, the other boxer involved in the controversy, told CNN last month she would take a gene test to remain eligible for the L.A. Olympics.

The IOC emphasized that the policy “is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs,” acknowledging the Olympic Charter’s statement that access to sport is a human right.