Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday banning transgender women from competing in female categories of sport, a ban that extends to the global showpiece in the latter half of his second term, the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
President Trump said the US government would deny visas for transgender Olympians who wanted to compete at the Games.
“The war on women’s sports is over,” Trump said. When asked about LA 2028, he added: “My administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes.”
Trump also sent a warning to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), saying he wants the governing body to “change everything having to do with the Olympics and having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject [trangender inclusion]” ahead of the Games.
Only a handful of openly transgender and non-binary athletes have ever competed at the Olympics. New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard was the first openly transgender woman to compete at an Olympics when she took part at Tokyo 2020. US middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz, who was assigned female at birth, came out as transgender and non-binary in 2021, and finished seventh in the women’s 1500m final in Paris last summer. Canadian footballer Quinn is also non-binary and transgender, and was part of the team who won gold in Tokyo.
While there were very few transgender athletes competing in Olympic sport, the broader issue of gender categorisation was a major talking point at Paris 2024.
The controversy centred on boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, who competed in the women’s competition despite having been disqualified from the women’s Boxing World Championships a year earlier in India after allegedly failing a gender eligibility test set by the International Boxing Association. The IBA did not specify why the boxers failed the test but did clarify that neither underwent testosterone examinations. Neither Khelif, 25, nor two-time world champion Lin, 28, are transgender or intersex.
Meanwhile athletes with naturally occurring higher testosterone levels associated with differences in sexual development (DSD), like South African runner Caster Semenya, have found themselves increasingly marginalised by tightening restrictions on testosterone levels in women’s categories. Semenya refused to take testosterone suppressants and took World Athletics to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), which ruled that the regulations were discriminatory but necessary and proportionate to ensure fair competition.
The International Olympic Committee’s approach to Paris 2024 was for each sport to set its own parameters regarding transgender, intersex and DSD athletes. Some sports, like athletics and swimming, have ruled that transgender women who have gone through male puberty cannot compete in women’s events, while rugby union, boxing and cycling have brought in tighter restrictions on transgender athletes competing in their women’s categories.
Trump‘s executive order, which largely focuses on transgender participation in school and college sports, is likely to face significant backlash and legal challenges in the US. But its potential impact on the Olympics may be a moot point. Even if new transgender athletes emerge over the next three years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) may by then have its own firm policy in place to deny them participation, with or without pressure from the US president.
The IOC will elect a new president this year, and Lord Coe – who currently heads up World Athletics – is the favourite to succeed the sitting IOC president Thomas Bach. Coe oversaw athletics’ ban on transgender women from international athletics competition in 2023, and has already made his stance clear.
“I think the International Olympic Committee needs a very, very clear policy in this space,” Coe told BBC Sport in November. “And the protection of the female category, for me, is absolutely non-negotiable. If you are not prepared to do that, and that is where the international federations expect a lead to be taken, then you really will lose female sport and I’m not prepared to see that happen.”
