03/26/26 08:22:00
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03/26 08:20 CDT Transgender women athletes banned from Olympics by new IOC
policy on female eligibility
Transgender women athletes banned from Olympics by new IOC policy on female
eligibility
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) --- Transgender women athletes are now excluded from
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 women's 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, "determined on the basis of
a one?time SRY gene screening."
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.
The eligibility policy that will apply from the LA 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 International Olympic Committee published
a 10-page policy document which also restricts female athletes such as two-time
Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya with medical conditions known as
differences in sex development, or DSD.
The IOC and its president, Kirsty Coventry, have wanted a clear policy instead
of continuing to advise sports' governing bodies who previously have drafted
their own rules.
Coventry 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 when Coventry's main rivals pledged a stronger policy to leading on the
issue.
Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, three top-tier sports --- track and field,
swimming and cycling --- already passed rules excluding transgender women who
had been through male puberty.
The IOC document details its research that being born male gives physical
advantages that are retained.
"Males experience three significant testosterone peaks: in utero, in
mini-puberty of infancy and beginning in adolescent puberty through adulthood,"
the document said.
It added this gives males "individual sex-based performance advantages in
sports and events that rely on strength, power and/or endurance."
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AP Winter Olympics at https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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