Only females will be allowed in women’s events at the Olympics, according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The March 26 decision by the committee excludes transgender-identifying individuals born male who may have sought to compete in the international events.
“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 IOC said.
Athletes’ eligibility will be determined by a mandatory genetic test.
The decision aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order to retain the integrity of women’s sports, ahead of the U.S.-hosted 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
The IOC said the policy, which will apply to the 2028 Games, “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.”
“It is not retroactive and does not apply to any grassroots or recreational sports programs,” the organization said.
Competitors such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya, who has a medical condition involving sexual development, would also be restricted according to the new rules, which were published in a 10-page policy document by the committee.
In the document, the Olympic governing group outlined the physical advantages males experience, as experts said those advantages are retained even after transition.
“Males experience three significant testosterone peaks: In utero, in mini-puberty of infancy, and beginning in adolescent puberty through adulthood,” the document states.
According to experts, this offers those born male “individual sex-based performance advantages in sports and events that rely on strength, power, and/or endurance.”
President Donald Trump praised the decision in a Truth Social post on March 26.
“Congratulations to the International Olympic Committee on their decision to ban Men from Women’s Sports,” Trump wrote.
“This is only happening because of my powerful Executive Order, standing up for Women and Girls!”
Days before the decision was handed down, the Sport & Rights Alliance, ILGA World, Humans of Sport, and more than 100 other allied organizations released a joint statement, asking the IOC to abandon any mandate for genetic testing to determine eligibility for Olympic events.
“A sex testing and blanket ban policy would be a catastrophic erosion of women’s rights and safety,” said Andrea Florence, executive director of the Sport & Rights Alliance.
No male-born transgender athletes competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
However, transgender-identifying weightlifter Laurel Hubbard competed in the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics on the New Zealand women’s team without medaling.
On March 12, Trump received loud applause when he spoke about his effort to prevent men from participating in women’s sports during a Women’s History Month event.
The president said he hopes to ban “the sexual mutilation of minor youth,” in reference to transgender surgery procedures performed on children.
“We have put the world on notice that America will not allow men to compete against women in the 2028 Olympics,” Trump said.
