The International Olympic Committee announced on Thursday that men who identify as women cannot compete in any female Olympic event, with implementation of the rule beginning at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
The committee called its decision “evidence-based and expert-informed,” adding that keeping men out of women’s sports “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.” The move came after the International Olympic Committee board conducted a nearly two-year review and discussed the issue with numerous medical experts.
“The scientific evidence is very clear: male chromosomes give performance advantage in sports that rely on strength, power, or endurance,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry said. “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat, so it’s absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports, it would simply not be safe.”
Coventry, who took over as the committee’s first female president last June, has long pushed to protect women’s sports. Coventry was a collegiate swimmer at Auburn and participated in five Olympic Games from 2000 to 2016, representing her home country of Zimbabwe.
The committee’s announcement comes as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in the United States, which is being planned in coordination with President Donald Trump. Trump signed an executive order last February on “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports” and also warned the International Olympic Committee about allowing men to compete in women’s sports, saying, “America categorically rejects transgender lunacy.”
After the committee’s announcement on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “You cannot change your sex. President Trump’s Executive Order protecting women’s sports made this happen!”
To ensure that all athletes competing in women’s events are female, the International Olympic Committee will require an SRY gene screening, which Coventry said athletes would only be required to take once. The screening would be done through saliva, a cheek swab, or a blood sample.
“Based on scientific evidence, the IOC considers that the presence of the SRY gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced male sex development,” the committee said.
The committee said that any male athlete who identifies as a woman would only be qualified to compete in male categories or in events “that do not classify athletes by sex.”
In 2020, male weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first trans-identifying athlete to compete against women in the Olympic Games. Hubbard, who had previously competed in the men’s category at other weightlifting events before he began identifying as a woman, represented New Zealand at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, where he failed to medal.
Then at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif dominated in the women’s welterweight division and took home a gold medal despite failing multiple gender tests. Khelif admitted last month that he has the SRY gene and that he took hormones to lower his testosterone levels before competing in the Olympics.
The committee’s move was praised by female athletes and women’s sports advocates. Kim Jones and Marshi Smith, former decorated athletes and founders of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, said Thursday’s announcement “marks a return of female sport to elite female athletes in Olympic competition and reaffirms the importance of fairness, safety, and equal opportunity worldwide.”
Jones and Smith also called on the NCAA “to follow suit.”
Professional soccer player Elizabeth Eddy, who was interviewed about protecting women’s sports by The Daily Wire earlier this week, said the International Olympic Committee’s decision shows that “the tides are turning.”
“Precedent has been set from the top, and leagues around the world, including American pro sports, should follow,” Eddy added.
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