Olympics Introduce Ban on Transgender Athletes
By Sydney Johnson
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has banned transgender women from the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. All future athletes who compete in female-category events will be required to undergo screening for the sex-determining region Y (SRY) gene to determine their biological sex.
This decision was made to protect the safety and fairness of women's sports, according to the IOC. The SRY test would only be required once for each athlete and would be administered through noninvasive methods, such as a saliva test or cheek swab.
Courtesy of The New York Times
Transgender women in female category sports have been a heated topic of conversation for the past 10 years. The first openly transgender woman to become an Olympian was Laurel Hubbard, who competed in the weightlifting over‑87kg super‑heavyweight category in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She transitioned at the age of 35 in 2013, and despite not completing her lift and coming in last, her participation in the competition sparked large debates on the effects of testosterone and whether it provides an unfair advantage for trans-woman athletes.
The professional boxer and 2024 gold medal winner, Imane Khelif, has been under fire amid the mandatory SRY test, as the IOC named her specifically as someone who shall not participate in the Olympics unless she undergoes the testing. Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 boxing World Championships along with Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting, who both claim to be cisgender women, for failing a different sex determination test. Khelif was also singled out by President Trump last year, when he signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from competing in Olympic sports. In response, Khelif confirmed she is not transgender and “In America, Los Angeles ... (she will) defend with everything this gold medal," in reference to her participation in the 2028 Olympics. She claimed she has nothing to hide when discussing the SRY test.
Despite the controversy around trans-woman athletes, there are no restrictions for transgender people assigned female at birth. Elis Lundholm is an openly transgender man and Swedish skier who became the first openly transgender person to compete in the 2026 Olympics in the women's category. He chose to downplay this accomplishment and focus on the sport, claiming “I'm just skiing,” according to ESPN.
Ethan Soto, a kinesiology major who has competed in co-ed sports like frisbee throughout his life, believes the issue is being made much more complicated than it needs to be. He claims that, “Obviously, there are some advantages and disadvantages, but it isn't as large a difference as it's being made out to be.”