Olympics Makes Final Decision on Transgender Athletes for 2028 LA Games

A new policy from the International Olympics Committee (IOC) officially bans transgender female athletes from competing in women's events. Eligibility for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles will be determined by a mandatory sex test, which must be taken by all women planning to compete.

The controversial move comes less than a month after the wrap of the 2026 Milano Cortina Games in Italy, where the Swedish skier Elis Lundholm became the first openly transgender athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics. The decision to ban trans women, led by new IOC President Kirsty Coventry, was previously expected to come even sooner in time for the 2026 Winter Games.

Coventry, who became IOC president in June, stated at the time that the issue of transgender athletes in sports would become one of her first matters of business. She established a task force "led by medical experts" to determine the committee's course of action.

"For all disciplines on the Sports Programme of an IOC Event, including individual and team sports, eligibility for any Female Category is limited to Biological Females," the policy reads in a 10-page report released by the IOC on March 26. The new policy is not retroactive, but will take effect starting at the 2028 Summer Olympic Games and continue into the future.

Sex Test Details

The Olympics committee plans to hold SRY gene tests for female athletes, a "one-in-a-lifetime test" that determines the presence of DNA that constitutes the Y chromosome. "The IOC considers that SRY gene screening via saliva, cheek swab or blood sample is unintrusive compared to other possible methods," reads the statement on the official Olympics site.

Sex testing has been a part of the Olympic Games since 1966, when women were expected to walk naked in front of judges to prove their gender. The tests became more scientific over time, but still led to interpersonal complications among athletes. Several women competing in the 1996 Atlanta Games discovered that they had differences in biological makeup that caused them to fail the test. Shortly after, in 1999, the IOC decided to end all widespread sex testing.

Now that the controversial measure is back in effect, activist groups are already sharing their discontent. "A sex testing and blanket ban policy would be a catastrophic erosion of women's rights and safety," says executive director of The Sport & Rights Alliance Andrea Florence.

The move to ban transgender women in Olympic events coincides with President Trump's 2025 "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order. The decree also came with a threat that visas for transgender athletes planning to compete in the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 would be denied. Alongside the new official ban by the Olympics Committee, the IOC has also removed its "Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination in Olympic Sport" page from its official website.