Washington (AFP) – American transgender women will no longer be able to compete in women's events at the Olympics and Paralympics after a recent policy change by the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).
A new note on the USOPC website regarding the participation of transgender athletes in sports says: "As of July 21, 2025, please refer to the USOPC athlete safety policy."
The policy update, following US President Donald Trump's "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order, was added to the USOPC Athlete Safety Policy on its website as a new subsection entitled "Additional Requirements."
"The USOPC is committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport," the addition reads.
"The USOPC will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities... to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201 (Trump's order) and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act."
The Stevens Act, adopted in 1988, provides a means of handling eligibility disputes for Olympic sports and other amateur events.
A memo to Team USA from USOPC chief executive Sarah Hirshland and president Gene Sykes on Tuesday obtained by ABC News and ESPN made reference to Trump's February executive order, saying: "As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations."
Trump's executive order threatens to remove federal funds from any school or institution allowing transgender girls to play on girls' teams, claiming that would violate Title IX rules giving US women equal sport opportunities.
The order requires immediate enforcement against institutions that deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms.
"Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women," ESPN quoted the USOPC letter to governing bodies as saying.
"All National Governing Bodies are required to update their applicable policies in alignment."
ESPN also said the officials noted the USOPC "has engaged in a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials" in the wake of Trump's executive order.
The move comes as Los Angeles awaits a host role for the 2028 Summer Olympics.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) also altered its policy for transgender athlete participation to limit women's sports competitors to athletes assigned female at birth after Trump's executive order.
Finally some sanity.
Name one transfem Olympian that this ruling protects against. Which of those girls are out there stealing medals?
Like, imagine an athlete so dedicated to trying to win that they spend years paying stupid amounts of money to go to a psychologist, go on HRT, get surgery, and deal with unbelievable amounts of stigma on top of the training you also would need to do in order to get almost no advantage (or possibly negative advantage) instead of just buying steroids.
Imagine being stupid enough to believe that.
This theoretical scenario about transitioning just to win medals seems like a strawman argument. And the question of "who is stealing medals" is loaded.
...But let me back up a bit to where we probably agree.
Of course these athletes don't want to take steroids, because.. these are not the type of people who want to do that.
I'd like to believe that trans athletes do want to win, AND that they have good intentions. (not trying to steal medals).
Let's put ourselves in their shoes - these athletes get to participate in the sport they love at a high level, and their transition is affirmed. So this is the best of both worlds for them.
If it turns out there is still an advantage left over, however small or large, I don't think the althetes would want to acknowledge it for fear of their opportunities being taken away. This is understandable, no?
As it turns out, estrogen doesn't overwrite absolutely everything. Skeletal structure (taller, longer arms), lung capacity, and heart size for example... these can all give an athletic advantage.
I think these are important to consider.
See, the thing is, I disagree. No one would take the years it takes to transition for the unknown potential advantage. We do not know what amount of advantage or disadvantage transitioning would give, and the evidence we currently have says that there isn't a statistical advantage.
These policies don't even protect cis-women. Women born with hormonal abnormalities or genetic advantages are directly impacted. These are seen as beneficial in male competitors (Michael Phelps is a genetic lottery winner and should probably be in his own league), but if a woman happened to benefit by having naturally higher testosterone production, height, or skeletal structure, should she be excluded from competing against women? Then the only difference between that hypothetical trans athlete and cis athlete is... That they are trans.
Most of this issue is really due to how we segregate sports. We arbitrarily use gender/sex because there are genetic and cultural differences that mostly correlate to difference in outcomes. There are better ways to segregate sports (ala weight classes in boxing) that would more fairly match opponents, but we don't do these. Why? Mostly laziness, somewhat historical systems of oppression.
So, no, I don't agree. When you can find a trans athlete that transitioned for am advantage, I will acknowledge your point.
Let me clarify a bit - that's exactly what we agree on: that no one transitions for the advantage. Cause that would just be ridiculous. So no, I can't provide you an athlete who transitioned for that reason...
but that doesn't make my concerns invalid, because it doesn't all rest on that point. People can have good intentions and still cause a result that is unfair (but not because they wanted it to be unfair). That's why I see the hypothetical scenario as a strawman/diversion.
I might respond to the rest later, but I wanted to at least get this out for now.
Your argument is that these are unfair, but I pointed out the exact scenario you are saying is unfair. You can argue that any biological difference a trans woman has compared to a cis woman is unfair, but does that mean a cis woman who has all of those things is also unfair? And if the answer is no, then... Why is there even a problem?
These aren't inherently unfair. They are perceived to be unfair because of how we segregate these sports and because we automatically just assume trans women are stronger, better, faster, etc than cis women, which isn't true. Again, the statistics we have show that cis and trans athletes have a statistical advantage in a wide variety of sports and activities between 7% to -13%.
Like, we see similar outcomes for trans men, and these concerned people do not give a shit about those athletes. You would think trans men would absolutely fail compared to men, given how poor these people think female athletes compare, but they don't. They do just as well compared to their cis counterparts.
Hell, several sports are starting to have women with results similar to men. Sure, a lot of weight and strength-based sports still see substantial differences, but many stamina- and speed-based sports are becoming quite competitive. This is why cultural differences also matter. A lot of our sports and health science is geared towards male athletes, and we treat female sports and competitors as lesser, from how we fund them to how we train them.