Consequences for trans women
IOC requires gender testing of female athletes
Updated March 26, 2026 – 2:39 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
The participation of trans women in women’s sporting competitions has been hotly debated in recent years. Now the IOC has made a decision.
According to the wishes of the International Olympic Committee, all female athletes should in future undergo gender tests in order to be able to take part in international women’s competitions. Trans women will be prohibited from competing in the women’s category in the future, as the IOC announced. It is expected that other sports associations will follow suit.
The new policy is the result of a working group set up by IOC President Kirsty Coventry to “protect the women’s category”.
The trigger for the stricter policy of the Olympic umbrella organization was, among other things, the fuss over competitions in women’s boxing at the Summer Games in Paris in 2024. At the center of the gender debate were the Olympic champions Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting. Both had previously been excluded from the World Cup by the world association Iba because they allegedly did not meet the participation criteria based on an unspecified gender test. There had also already been discussions about the transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand at the 2021 Olympics.
Both were allowed to compete at the Olympics. The then IOC President Thomas Bach said, referring to the rules in force at the time: “There was never any doubt that they were women.” Khelif also recently emphasized: “I’m not a transsexual, I’m a girl.” Trans people are people who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
Khelif announced before the IOC’s new regulations that he would undergo a gender test before the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. According to the new IOC guidelines, athletes only have to take the test once if there are no doubts about the result. They were then permanently admitted to competitions, it was said.
Most recently, the Swedish mogul skier Elis Lundholm in Italy was the first athlete to compete openly as a trans man at the Winter Games – in the women’s competition. At birth he was assigned female gender. However, he has identified himself as a man for many years.
However, he did not have his gender entry legally changed, nor did he have any medical measures for gender reassignment treatment. Therefore, he was nominated for the women’s team by the Swedish association, and the IOC allowed his participation.
