New IOC Eligibility Policy Approved for 2028 Los Angeles Games
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved a new eligibility policy, effective for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. This significant policy change will impact women's events at the Olympics.
The new policy explicitly excludes transgender women athletes from women’s events at the Olympics and aligns with a U.S. President Donald Trump executive order on sports.
Under this updated framework, eligibility for female category events across all Olympic sports—individual and team—is now restricted to biological females. This determination will be made through a mandatory gene test, administered once per athlete.
While the exact number of transgender women currently competing at an Olympic level is not specified, no transgender woman competed in the 2024 Paris Summer Games. Notably, weightlifter Laurel Hubbard competed at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Policy Scope and Rationale
The IOC announced that the policy, which takes effect from the July 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, is designed to protect fairness, safety, and integrity within the female sports category. The policy is not retroactive and does not extend to grassroots or recreational sports programs. The Olympic Charter emphasizes that access to sport is a human right.
A detailed 10-page policy document, released following an executive board meeting, also introduces restrictions on female athletes with differences in sex development (DSD), affecting individuals such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya.
IOC President Kirsty Coventry highlighted the IOC's preference for a clear, unified policy, moving away from the previous approach where individual sports' governing bodies drafted their own rules.
"Due to small performance margins in Olympic events, it is not considered fair for biological males to compete in the female category," Coventry stated.
Coventry initiated a review focused on safeguarding the female category shortly after becoming the first woman to lead the Olympic body.
Scientific Basis: Performance Advantages and Testing
The IOC document presents research indicating that being born male confers inherent physical advantages that experts believe are retained. Males experience three significant testosterone peaks: in utero, during infancy's mini-puberty, and from adolescent puberty through adulthood. These biological factors result in individual sex-based performance advantages in sports reliant on strength, power, or endurance.
The expert group concluded that the current gene test, which screens for the SRY gene typically found on the Y chromosome, is the most accurate and least intrusive method available for determining biological sex.
This gene is crucial as it initiates male sex development and indicates the presence of testes. Mandatory gender screening, already conducted by governing bodies in track and field, skiing, and boxing, has been a topic of discussion among human rights experts and activist groups.
The IOC document specified male performance advantages over biological women: 10-12% in most running and swimming events, at least 20% in most throwing and jumping events, and potentially over 100% for explosive power events like punching sports.
Legal Challenges and Related Cases
The new IOC policy can be challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Athletes such as Dutee Chand and Caster Semenya have previously contested their sports' eligibility rules at this court, with any appeal expected to scrutinize the scientific basis of the IOC's research.
Even prior to the 2024 Paris Olympics, sports including track and field, swimming, and cycling had already implemented rules excluding transgender women who had undergone male puberty. Caster Semenya, who was assigned female at birth but has elevated testosterone levels, previously challenged track and field's rules in the European Court of Human Rights, though the judgment did not overturn the rules.
In recent events, Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, one of two women's boxing gold medalists in a gender controversy in Paris, has passed her gene test and is eligible to compete. Imane Khelif of Algeria, the other Olympic boxing champion mentioned, has stated intentions to take a gene test for eligibility in the Los Angeles Olympics.
Alignment with U.S. Policy
The IOC's policy aligns with a significant development in the United States. An executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” was signed in February of the previous year. This order included provisions that could potentially deny visas to certain athletes for the Los Angeles Olympics and threatened to withhold funds from organizations allowing transgender athletes in women’s sports. Subsequently, the U.S. Olympic body updated its guidance to national sports bodies, referencing compliance with the White House directive.