The International Olympic Committee has barred transgender athletes from competing in the women’s category of the Olympics and said that all participants in those events must undergo genetic testing.
The decision, the most consequential since Kirsty Coventry was elected last year as the first woman to serve as president of the I.O.C., followed a board meeting and months of speculation over the organization’s policy on one of the most contentious issues facing global sports. The rules will be applicable starting at the next Olympics, in Los Angeles in 2028.
When Ms. Coventry, a former Olympic champion swimmer from Zimbabwe, campaigned to lead the organization, she frequently said how important it was to protect the women’s category amid broader — and often bitter — debates about the participation of transgender athletes in sporting competitions.
“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Ms. Coventry said in a statement announcing the news. “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.”
She added the new policy “is based on science and has been led by medical experts.” Under the new policy eligibility will be determined by a one-time gene test, according to the I.O.C. The test, which is already being used in track and field, requires screening via saliva, a cheek swab or a blood sample.
Payoshni Mitra, executive director at Humans of Sport, a group that has focused on the issue, was critical of the new Olympic policy. “This kind of brutal language doesn’t protect sports — it polices women’s bodies,” she said in a statement to The New York Times. “It fuels suspicion, invites public scrutiny and puts already vulnerable athletes at risk.”
The I.O.C. consulted a number of experts as it grappled with how to handle an issue that was becoming a growing concern for sports leaders. Late last year, Dr. Jane Thornton, the I.O.C.’s medical and scientific director and a former Olympic rower for Canada, presented the initial findings of a review that started in 2024 of athletes who are transgender or have differences of sexual development, known as DSD, and are competing in women’s sports. That analysis, which has not been made public, stated that athletes born with male sexual markers retained physical advantages, including among those that had received treatment to reduce testosterone.
In 2021, Laurel Hubbard, a weight lifter from New Zealand, became the first transgender woman to compete at an Olympics after transitioning.
Until now, the I.O.C.’s guidance had permitted transgender women to compete with reduced testosterone levels, but left the final decision to individual sports federations. Track and field, swimming, boxing and rugby have introduced their own sweeping bans on transgender athletes from competing in women’s competitions.
Women’s sports have been a critical front in a polarizing and public debate over transgender issues, a topic that was further inflamed last year when President Trump signed an executive order prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in women’s college sports.
Track and field became the first major sport to introduce mandatory DNA sex testing for athletes, starting with women’s competitions in March 2024. That came less than a year after the issue of eligibility erupted at the Paris Olympics in 2024, when the boxing competition was upended by ugly scenes inside and outside the ring over the participation of two women who went on to secure gold medals.
The I.O.C.’s announcement comes just days after boxing officials cleared the featherweight champion Lin Yu-ting to return to the sport after her status — along with that of the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, the other woman at the center of the debate in Paris — had been put in doubt. Lin, 30, can now compete at the Asian Boxing Championships this weekend, her first international event since the Paris Olympics.
The screening rules, including those of the type announced by the I.O.C., have already run into problems with national laws. For example, female boxers in France were not able to be tested locally before international competitions because privacy laws there restrict genetic testing to determine gender.
The I.O.C. ruling also — with the exception of the rarest cases — eliminates from women’s competition a minority of athletes who do not have the typical female XX sex chromosomes, and have one of several conditions that together are known as differences in sex development. Some people do not know they have such differences. But their unusual genetics can result in high levels of testosterone and possibly greater muscular development, giving them some of the athletic advantage that men have.
Track and field has been at the forefront of the debate since the South African runner Caster Semenya won gold in the 800 meters at a world championships in 2009. Her victory prompted a backlash from rivals who complained about Ms. Semenya’s appearance, leading to the governing body at the time ordering sex tests. At issue was a rare trait giving her naturally elevated levels of testosterone.
Ms. Semenya has for years battled against previous rules demanding she and others reduce their testosterone, losing a challenge at sport’s top court in 2019. She was among nine African athletes to sign a letter sent to Ms. Coventry, in which they detailed “cruel and degrading treatment” they faced over eligibility regulations for women with sex variations, describing invasive examinations, forced surgeries and harmful hormone treatment that have led, they say, to physical and emotional trauma and come at significant financial cost.
“I have carried this weight. So have other women of color who deserved better from sport,” Ms. Semenya said in a statement to the Times.
“Reintroducing genetic screening is not progress — it is walking backward,” she said, adding, “This is just exclusion with a new name.”
Tariq Panja is a global sports correspondent, focusing on stories where money, geopolitics and crime intersect with the sports world.
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