The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has officially banned transgender women from competing in women’s Olympic events.

The new policy also introduces mandatory genetic testing requirements for all female athletes, a move that human rights and sports advocacy organizations have strongly opposed.

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“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening,” the IOC’s March 26 announcement reads.

The IOC describes the policy, approved by its executive board and developed based on the findings of its Working Group on the Protection of the Female Category, as “evidence‑based and expert‑informed.” It claims that it considers screening for the SRY gene — typically found in the Y chromosome — via saliva, cheek swab or blood sample to be the “most accurate and least intrusive method currently available to verify biological sex.”

But as LGBTQ Nation sibling site OutSports notes, Dr. Andrew Sinclair, the professor who first identified the SRY gene, has said that testing for the gene is an inadequate method of establishing biological sex.

“All it tells you is whether or not the gene is present. It does not tell you how SRY is functioning, whether a testis has formed, whether testosterone is produced, and, if so, whether it can be used by the body,” Sinclair wrote last August.

Nevertheless, the IOC says that athletes will have to test negative for the SRY gene to satisfy eligibility criteria for competition in the female category.

“Unless there is reason to believe that a negative reading is in error, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime test,” Thursday’s announcement reads.

The new policy does make a “rare exception” for “athletes with a diagnosis of Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS) or other rare differences/disorders in sex development (DSDs) who do not benefit from the anabolic and/or performance-enhancing effects of testosterone.” It is also not retroactive and does not apply to grassroots or recreational sports programs, according to the IOC’s announcement.

In a statement, IOC President Kirsty Coventry claimed that “it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category,” and that “in some sports it would simply not be safe.”

Contrary to Coventry’s statement, a recent systematic review of data published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that after one to three years of hormone therapy, trans and cis women have comparable levels of athletic fitness.

The announcement of the policy has been expected for months. Upon being elected to head the IOC last year, Coventry promised to create a task force “to look at the transgender issue and the protection of the female category” and to work with the administration on the president’s anti-trans priorities outlined in his February 2025 executive order calling for trans women and girls to be banned from women’s and girls’ sports.

Prior to Thursday’s announcement, the IOC had not required female athletes to undergo genetic testing since 1999. Critics say such testing holds female athletes to narrow biological standards and disproportionately affects women of color.

But as OutSports notes, calls to reinstitute genetic testing in elite sports have increased exponentially in recent years, following anti-trans controversies around cisgender South African Olympic medalist Caster Semenya, who was born with differences in sex development, and transgender former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas.

As Karleigh Webb writes for OutSports, world sports governing bodies that have not yet banned trans women are now likely to do so following the IOC’s new policy, and the bans will likely extend beyond elite sports. The IOC’s decision is certain to contribute to pressure to ban trans women and girls at all sporting levels and to provide justification for legislative bans.

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