IOC Policy Bans Transgender Athletes From Women’s Events

Only biological females will be eligible for any female category event at the Olympic Games, according to an announcement Thursday from the International Olympic Committee after the IOC’s executive board approved the policy.

The decision will apply to the LA28 Olympic Games and is not retroactive, nor does it apply to grassroots or recreational sports.

The determination of an athlete’s gender will be made by a one-time SRY screening.

The new rule effectively targets transgender athletes, who had been eligible to compete at the Olympics if their respective federations had cleared them. The policy also applies to Olympic qualifiers and Youth Olympics.

“Based on scientific evidence, the ​IOC considers that the presence of the SRY gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced male sex development,” the IOC said in a statement.

Coventry Comments

IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who took over last June from retiring Thomas Bach, cited the “smallest margins” that determine the outcome of various events at the Games. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category,” she added. “In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”

The United States will of course host the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles, and President Donald Trump in February 2025 signed an executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” that, among other things, threatened to “rescind all funds” from organizations that allowed transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports.

Five months later, the USOPC effectively barred transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, telling its national governing bodies that they had “an obligation to comply” with the federal expectations.

“I really believe this policy is foundationally based in science and led by medical experts,” Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, said Thursday. “We know that this topic is sensitive. Safety on the field of play and fairness. One of the things we like to ​see in sport is fair and equal treatment of everyone on that field of play. Those are the two personal reasons I felt very strongly about this.”

According to a statement from the IOC, exceptions will be made only for athletes “who are diagnosed with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) or other rare differences/disorders in sex development (DSDs) who do not benefit from the anabolic and/or performance-enhancing effects of testosterone.”

Athletes who test positive for SRY are still eligible to compete in male categories and any open category or in sports and events that do not classify athletes by sex.