The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is expected to ban men identifying as women from competing in female events before the next games, The Times reported on Monday.
The pending decision follows a comprehensive review examining whether males retain physical advantages even after lowering testosterone levels, according to The Times, which reported its sources say the move will be likely be announced in February. The issue came under intense scrutiny during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris when two boxers won gold medals despite earlier disqualifications for failing to meet gender eligibility criteria.
The IOC confirmed on Monday that the work on the move continues but noted no official decision has “been taken yet.”
Until now, gender-related regulations have been left to each sport’s governing body rather than being dictated by a universal IOC policy. However, IOC President Kirsty Coventry signaled in June that this could change, emphasizing the need for “protecting” the women’s category.
“We understand that there’ll be differences depending on the sport … but it was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost to ensure fairness,” Coventry said at the time. “But we need to do that with a scientific approach and the inclusion of the international federations who have already done a lot of work in this area.”
Sources told The Times that Jane Thornton, the IOC’s medical and scientific director, gave a presentation to the committee showing that male athletes maintain physical advantages even after undergoing testosterone suppression treatment.
“It was a very scientific, factual, and unemotional presentation which quite clearly laid out the evidence,” one source reportedly told the outlet, while another IOC insider said there had been overwhelmingly positive feedback from IOC members about the presentation.
The upcoming policy switch is likely to be announced at the IOC session in February ahead of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy, according to The Times.
The IOC confirmed that its director of Health, Medicine and Science gave an update to IOC members last week during the commission meeting, Reuters reported. However, the spokesperson pushed back on reports that a final decision has already been made, saying the organization is still “continuing its discussions” and that “no decisions have been taken yet.”
The IOC did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The debate over transgender athletes escalated during the 2024 Paris Games, when Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting won gold medals in their respective weight classes, despite having been disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for being “found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.”
A similar controversy erupted at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics when Laurel Hubbard, a man identifying as a woman, competed in the women’s weightlifting competition.
The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee announced in July that trans-identifying male athletes will no longer be allowed to compete in women’s categories for Team USA. The decision followed President Donald Trump’s executive order in February titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” prohibiting entities that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” by allowing men to compete in women’s sports from receiving federal funds.
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