The International Olympic Committee is nearing a ban on transgender women from participating in women’s sports at the Olympics, according to multiple reports coming out of Europe on Monday.
The Times in the United Kingdom was the first to report that the ban had already been put in place, but multiple outlets have confirmed that such a decision could be finalized within the next six to 12 months, meaning it would be in place for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The amendment has not been officially presented to the IOC board as of yet.
United States President Donald Trump has put continuous pressure on the Olympics and its organizers to ban transgender women from competing in female sports. He signed an executive order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” in February to do just that, particularly at the high school level.
“In Los Angeles 2028, my administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes,” Trump said after the signing of the order. “We’re not gonna let that happen. Just to make sure, I’m also directing our Secretary of Homeland Security to deny any and all visa applications made by men attempting to fraudulently enter the US while identifying as women athletes to try and get into the Games.”
IOC medical chief Dr. Jane Thornton presented to her constituents last week the advantages that athletes born as men have in women’s sports.
The IOC is reassessing its rules on gender eligibility after leaving it up to each particular sport to draft its own rules on who would be allowed to compete, which would mark the first time since 2000 that overarching gender testing would be instituted. The Olympics executed chromosome tests between the 1968 and 1998 Games, which would offer female athletes “certificates of femininity.”
World Athletics has introduced a new test to verify biological sex with a cheek swab, which would reveal whether or not an athlete has a male Y chromosome. There had been understandable pushback from the IOC, but new president Kirsy Coventry has been vocal in protecting the women’s category at the Olympics.
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