SPORTS | Vol. 24, Issue 11 | 1

I.O.C. to Ban Trans Women Athletes

On March 26, the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) announced a ban on transgender athletes competing in women’s events. The policy, which will first take effect during LA28, is facing controversy and adding fuel to the fire of the trans panic in sports.

Kirsty Coventry, President of the I.O.C., defends the policy by stating that, “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat. So, it is 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.”

To enforce this policy, the I.O.C. will be issuing a mandatory gene test, which will be done once in an athlete’s career.

This policy comes after no transgender women competed in the 2024 Paris Summer Games. The first transgender woman to compete in the Olympics, weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, competed at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but did not qualify for any medals.

In fact, only one openly transgender or non-binary person has won an Olympic medal. That feat belongs to Quinn, who is non-binary. They helped their country, Canada, bring home gold in women’s soccer at the Tokyo Olympics, becoming the first transgender and non-binary Olympic champion to do so.

Defenders of the policy, however, may bring up Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer who won gold in women’s boxing at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Due to a medical condition, she has higher levels of testosterone compared to her peers, potentially giving her an edge over her competitors. Even so, she is under medical supervision to help suppress her unusually high levels.

Because of this medical condition, however, many people began to claim she was biologically male and that this was just another case of “trans people dominating in women’s sports,” but it wasn’t. Khelif is a woman, from her birth in 1999 to now.

In addition, a 2024 study partly funded by the I.O.C. and published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine revealed that, when all is said and done, transgender women participating in sports may actually be the ones facing a severe disadvantage when compared to cisgender women.

The study found that transgender women have a very noticeable disadvantage in lower-body strength and lung function when compared to cisgender women. Furthermore, bone density, a rather popular argumentative point brought up when people attack transgender women in sports, was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women.

Finally, there were no outstanding differences found between transgender and cisgender women’s hemoglobin profiles, which are a key factor when looking at athletic performance.

According to a study by UCLA’s School of Law Williams Institute, transgender people make up only one percent of the United States’ population. An even smaller group, trans people make up just under 0.002 percent (or 10 out of 500,000) of U.S. college athletes.

Despite this, in 2026 alone, 755 anti-trans bills have been, and continue to be, introduced across the country. These bills range from blocking trans people from receiving basic healthcare to even blocking people’s legal recognition and their right to exist.

Sports have always been a way for someone to express themselves and escape reality. As a transgender woman myself, I’ve used ice hockey as a way to vent my frustration and anger at the world, while also finding happiness and community through the sport.

But everything is political now, even sports, and even people’s lives.