To me, this is basic misogyny; soon it will be simpler for the Olympics to ban women and girls entirely. I will note that it doesn’t seem that they’re going to check for trans men. I wonder if trans men ought to play in women’s sports, under this “logic”? Meanwhile, all the girls and women who are a little too tall, a little too strong, a little larger built in the shoulders, etc., etc. are going to be excluded along with other women who passed through male puberty before transitioning. The illogic of this makes my head explode.
I will add that there is a special place in hell for women who undermine other women; especially those who get somewhere, then yank the ladder up behind them. Lookin’ at Kirsty Coventry, pictured below, now IOC President.
Transgender women athletes banned from female Olympic events by new IOC policy
By GRAHAM DUNBARUpdated 2:25 PM CDT, March 26, 2026
GENEVA (AP) — Transgender women athletes are now excluded from women’s events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy on Thursday which aligns with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on sports 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 International Olympic Committee said, to be determined by a mandatory gene test once in an athlete’s career.
It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level. No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, though weightlifter Laurel Hubbard did at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 without winning a medal.
The eligibility policy that will apply from the L.A. Olympics in July 2028 “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category,” the IOC said.
“It is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs,” said the IOC, whose Olympic Charter states that access to play sport is a human right.
After an executive board meeting, the IOC published a 10-page policy document that also restricts female athletes such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya with medical conditions known as differences in sex development, or DSD.
“We know that this topic is sensitive,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry said in an online news conference to explain the policy.
Coventry and the IOC have wanted a clear policy instead of continuing to advise sports’ governing bodies who previously have drafted their own rules.
“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, said in a statement. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”
She set up a review of “protecting the female category” as one of her first big decisions last June as the first woman to lead the Olympic body in its 132-year history.
Female eligibility was a strong theme in a seven-candidate IOC election last year — held after a furor around women’s boxing in Paris — when Coventry’s main rivals pledged a stronger policy to leading on the issue.
“This was a priority for me way before President Trump came into his second term,” Coventry said. “There’s not been any pressure (on) us to deliver anything from anybody outside of the Olympic Movement.”
Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, three top-tier sports — track and field, swimming and cycling — excluded transgender women who had been through male puberty. Semenya, who was assigned female at birth in South Africa and has testosterone levels higher than the typical female range, won a European Court of Human Rights judgment in her years-long legal challenge to track and field’s rules which did not overturn them. (snip-there is more, sort of pleading for understanding, but go see the rest of it if you like)
The expert group agreed the current gene test is “the most accurate and least intrusive method currently available.” The saliva, cheek swab or blood sample screens for “the SRY gene, a segment of DNA typically found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero and indicates the presence of testes/testicles.”
Still, the mandatory gender screening — already conducted by the governing bodies of track and field, skiing and boxing — is likely to be criticized by human rights experts and activist groups.
Athlete appeal to CAS?
The IOC policy can — and likely will — be challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the Olympic body’s Swiss home city Lausanne, perhaps by an athlete acting alone.
Track athletes Dutee Chand of India and Semenya challenged previous versions of their sport’s eligibility rules at the court.
Any potential appeal would examine science underpinning IOC research which was not published Thursday. A case could occupy much of the near-28 months until the L.A. Olympics open.
“As we know in today’s world,” Coventry said, “any and all rules and regulations at any point in time could always be challenged.” (snip)
The White House welcomed the IOC’s decision, describing it as the result of the executive order.
“The IOC aligning their policy with President Trump’s executive order ahead of the 2028 LA Games is common sense and long overdue,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement.
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