The International Olympic Committee will likely announce an overhauled policy for the female category that bans transgender athletes, according to published reports.
In an article by The Times on Monday, the IOC will cite a science-based study that says athletes who are born male have physical advantages and will not be permitted to compete in female events.
Through its spokesperson, the IOC revealed that in a member meeting in Lausanne last week it showed the details of a study lead by medical and scientific director Dr. Jane Thornton and that its working group is “continuing its discussions on this topic and no decisions have been taken yet. Further information will be provided in due course.”
However, sources citied by The Times confirmed that the meeting actually confirmed that the study made it clear that even if athletes who were born male had taken treatments to lower testosterone levels, a physical advantage was still present, based on the research.
Individual federations currently have jurisdiction over its own guidance on transgender and DSD athletes.
In July the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly updated its eligibility rules that prohibited transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. The move, under the “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy,” aligned with President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” that was signed on February 5.
World Athletics has already taken significant measures that affirm its stance on defining and not allowing transgender and DSD athletes in female events. The governing body mandated genetic tests for athletes who hoped to compete in the female category in September’s world championships in Tokyo.
World Boxing also implemented a similar policy in August, requiring female athletes over 18 to undergo genetic testing to determine their sex at birth in order to compete in international events.
The move by World Boxing was prompted by controversy during the final rounds of the women’s boxing tournament at the 2024 Paris Olympics when Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting and Algeria’s Imane Khelif won gold medals. However, the previous year, Yu-Ting and Khelif were barred from boxing’s world championships because they did not meet the guidelines for gender eligibility.
That follows the huge controversy at the boxing tournament at the Paris 2024 Olympics when two boxers, Imane Khelif from Algeria and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, won gold medals despite having been disqualified from the previous year’s World Championships for allegedly failing to meet gender eligibility criteria.
New IOC president Kirsty Coventry has vowed to protect the female category as any rule chance would mark a major hallmark of her early tenure.
Coventry took over as president in July and succeeded Thomas Bach after winning an overwhelming majority of the IOC ballot in March.
