The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has ruled that eligibility for the women’s category of Olympics events will now be limited to biological females, starting from the LA 2028 Games.
The IOC’s new policy rules that eligibility for the women’s category will be determined by a one-time gene-screening test, in a move the IOC said would “ensure fairness and protect safety, particularly in contact sports”.
It means transgender women will be banned from competing at the Olympics as females. Previously, openly transgender athletes, such New Zealand’s weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, could compete in a different gender category to the one assigned at birth if cleared by their federation.
The IOC said any athletes found to posses the SRY gene would be ineligible for the women’s category. “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.
The IOC reviewed its policy following the 2024 Paris Olympics, and the ruling was announced by new IOC president Kirsty Coventry, who said after taking over last year that the organisation would take a uniform approach.
“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry said. “So it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
Gender eligibility was a major talking point during the Paris Olympics. The Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who is not transgender, was cleared to compete by the IOC after she was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for allegedly failing to meet gender eligibility criteria.
The organisers of those World Championships, the International Boxing Association (IBA), had previously been expelled by the Olympics movement due to concerns over its governance. Lin Yu-ting, of Taiwan, also won gold in Paris after allegedly failing a gender eligibility test the previous year.
US president Donald Trump last year banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports in the United States, and had said he would not allow transgender athletes to compete in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The IOC said there are exceptions for rare cases of sex development, adding: “With the rare exception of athletes with a diagnosis of 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, no athlete with an SRY-positive screen is eligible for competition in the female category at an IOC event.”
But the new rules have no retroactive power and have no impact on grassroots or amateur sports.
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