Olympics to Ban Men From Women’s sports

The Olympics is increasingly likely to ban transgender athletes from all female competition following a science-based review of evidence.

Kirsty Coventry, the new president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), told Telegraph Sport in January that she favoured a blanket ban and, after winning the presidency in March, commissioned a review that assessed the permanent physical advantages of being born male.

An update was provided last week to IOC members by Dr Jane Thornton, who is the committee’s medical and scientific director.

Although no final decision has been made, the update to IOC members reportedly stated that scientific evidence showed there were physical advantages to being born male that remained even after reducing testosterone levels.

The IOC’s current policy is that individual sports should decide their own rules, leaving a mixture of approaches. Athletics and swimming ban transgender athletes while sports such as football permit transgender competitors as long as they have taken measures to reduce their testosterone levels.

Difference between transgender and DSD athletes

Laurel Hubbard, a weightlifter from New Zealand, became the first openly transgender to compete at the Olympics in 2021 but failed to record a successful lift in the women’s +87kg category.

The stricter new IOC policy could also include athletes with differences of sex development, known as DSD. The most high-profile example is Caster Semenya, who won 800 metres gold at London 2012 and Rio 2016.

Two boxers – Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting – won controversial gold medals at the Paris Olympics last year despite allegedly failing to meet gender eligibility criteria at the Boxing World Championships.

According to World Athletics data, there have been 135 DSD finalists in elite female athletics competition this century.

In a presentation at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo this year, Dr Stephane Bermon, the head of health and science, estimated that 151.9 times more DSD athletes had made finals than the DSD incidence in the general population. World Athletics introduced mandatory sex testing ahead of this year’s World Championships, a move Bermon said was necessary because of an “over-representation” of DSD athletes among finalists.

The IOC is expected to update its gender policy next year, with officials mindful of the legal ramifications. Governing bodies in the UK, including the Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board, introduced a ban on transgender athletes in the female category earlier this year but the ECB is now facing a legal challenge over its policy change.

‘We need to protect women’s sport’

Speaking in January, Coventry, who won seven Olympic medals in swimming, said: “Protecting the female category and female sports is paramount – it’s a priority that we collectively come together.

“There is more and more scientific research. We are not having a conversation about how it is detrimental to men’s sport. That, in itself, says we need to protect women’s sport. It is very clear that transgender women are more able in the female category, and can take away opportunities that should be equal for women.”

Coventry was also part of the executive board that handled the controversy in Paris when Yu-Ting and Khelif won gold medals.

Addressing that, Coventry said that “lessons are always going to be learnt – Paris is definitely one of those times”, but claimed that they could not have foreseen that specific controversy.

The IOC implemented “certificates of femininity” at the 1968 Mexico Games, but these chromosome-based tests were later deemed unscientific and unethical, leading to their removal before the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Coventry has not ruled out a return to mandatory sex testing and has promised to implement a “cohesive” policy.

In February, President Trump signed an executive order that prevents transgender athletes from competing in female categories. He said the order would include the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

An IOC spokesperson confirmed that the policy was under review. “An update was given by the IOC medical and scientific director to the IOC members last week at the commission meetings,” said the spokesperson. “The working group is continuing its discussions on this topic and no decisions have been taken yet.”