Foreign Policy Brief #225 | Reilly Fitzgerald | December 3, 2025
Policy Summary
Recently the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been considering the idea of altering their policies on inclusion of transgendered athletes in the Olympic Games. Currently, and since 2004, the IOC’s rules have allowed for each nation’s federation to determine inclusivity of transgendered athletes (or not to include them). In the history of the Olympic Games, there has only ever been one transgender athlete compete and it was New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard (Olympic weightlifting); and a transgender athlete has NEVER won a medal in the Olympic Games.
The proposal is seeking a uniform policy that the IOC would apply across all Olympic competitions, taking power from each federation’s ability to determine who is, or is not, included in an Olympic delegation. The IOC has yet to decide on whether or not to move this policy forward; however, it is heavily reported across all media platforms that this policy will become real. It should be noted that this policy only seems to be applicable to women’s sports as it aims to target transgender athletes and potentially test athletes to confirm their gender as females.
This Brief describes the background and history of the challenging issue of testing for transgender athletes.
Background
Gender identity and sports has become a household topic both in the United States and abroad. In the United States local, state, and federal policymakers, including the President, have weighed in on the issues; some states have even passed legislation either targeting or promoting inclusion in sports. Based on reporting from The Hill, in December 2024, the NCAA President Charlie Baker told the US Senate that there were ‘ less than 10 transgender student-athletes in the NCAA (out of over 500,000 student-athletes)..
The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Dr. Jane Thornton has spoken about some early research findings that are pointing toward a physical and competitive advantage for transgender athletes who transitioned after experiencing male puberty, even after suppressing testosterone in their bodies, according to The Ministry of Sport. This is furthering the desires of the IOC’s president, Kirsty Coventry, who is calling for a more uniform and blanket policy for the inclusion, or rejection, of transgender athletes in the Olympics. Currently, each nation’s sporting federations get to decide whether or not to include transgender athletes in their nation’s delegations. The IOC’s potential shift in policy would make it so that each federation would have to follow one policy and not have the freedom to include these athletes.
The policy shift is one that would encourage further testing and scrutiny of transgender athletes to confirm their gender. Some sporting federations are already conducting tests to confirm gender. The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) has been utilizing cheek swabs and blood testing to verify gender in their ski and snowboard competitions. The International Boxing Association (IBA) is also conducting testing of their own; however, there has been controversy regarding their practices. The IBA is a Russian-led association, and they were at the forefront of the Imane Khelif case. Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 World Championships after tests supposedly revealed XY chromosomes and higher levels of testosterone; however, the IOC cleared her to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics, and these results were never officially revealed. The IBA did not reveal their testing methods. The timing of the disqualification came just a few days after Imane Khelif defeated Russian boxer Azelia Amineva, who had been undefeated before their fight. This is just one example of the use of gender confirming testing, or supposed testing, being used against athletes in unethical ways.
World Athletics, which oversees track and field events globally, instituted new rulings this summer ahead of the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September. The rulings required all female athletes to be subjected to genetic testing to confirm the presence of XY chromosomes, suggesting that it would detect whether an athlete was male or female genetically. It appears to be a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ test; however, according to the BBC some countries have outlawed genetic testing for non-medical reasons. This type of law and ban in countries like France and Norway have meant that athletes from these countries must conduct these genetic tests abroad, and not within the borders of their own countries. This decision was sparked by champion athlete Caster Semenya’s gender being questioned due to her successes. She was determined to be an athlete who was born with “differences in sex development” (or DSD). Semenya always competes as a female due to externally having female reproductive organs, but also has internal testes.
This has been called into question in the past too, in 2016’s Olympics in Rio, all three podium finishers in the women’s 800m were athletes with DSD (Disorders of Sexual Development)conditions (and Semenya won gold at that race), according to the BBC.
History
The idea of gender confirmation testing in athletics is not a new concept. Women’s sports was brought into the Olympic Games in 1924. By the 1950s and 1960s, concerns regarding doping and gender fraud became more prevalent (oftentimes, these rumors were based on visual stereotypes). The 1936 Olympics in Berlin had several issues related to gender. In the 100 meters, Helen Stephen defeated Stella Walsh (Stanisława Walasiewicz). Helen defeated Walsh in the 100 meter dash. A Polish publication accused Helen Stephens of being a man due to her impressive performance. Olympic officials carried out a physical examination to confirm Helen’s gender as a female, and it was confirmed, and she was awarded her medal. However, Stella Walsh was killed in the 1980s in a shooting in Ohio; and the autopsy revealed that she had a genetic condition with “ambiguous genitalia” known as mosaicism. Mosaicism is a condition that is created when a single egg is fertilized and creates an error when cells begin to divide. It should be stated that Walsh’s gender identity, that she lived with her entire life, was female.
After the 1936 Olympics, gender testing continued to evolve. In the 1960s and 1970s, physical exams were commonplace across all international sports; ironically, one competitor was disqualified, at the 1967 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, for not having large enough breasts to be considered feminine. Physical exams were as invasive, at times, as they sound; they ranged from a hands-off examination, to a physically manipulative exam, and other methods all of which were humiliating and degrading. Chromosomal testing became quite popular after being introduced at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, however, a false positive was not an uncommon occurrence. In a 2010 study Vanessa Huggie wrote “this test for chromosomal sex does not necessarily map on to physiological or phenotypic sex, which are the only kinds of sexual identity that confer a sporting advantage (and there are many confounding conditions, as people can be born with just one or three or more sex chromosomes …”
The organization that led the charge in the 1940s for more gender testing was the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF). The IAAF was insistent on conducting more tests to sort out cases of accused gender fraud. By the 1980s, the IAAF dropped its usage of chromosomal testing and genetic tests for physical examinations. All testing was dropped by 1992 due to new urine tests for doping control, and the idea that minimal clothing in sports would help reveal one’s gender. By 1999, the IOC ended the requirement for any blanket testing policies, and the 2000 Olympics in Sidney were the first to be done since 1936 without gender confirmation testing.
The goal for the IOC now is to create a blanket gender testing policy for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. President Trump has been one of the most ardent supporters of policies limiting or erasing the participation, of transgender athletes in sports at all levels; and has even called for more testing by the IOC ahead of the 2028 Games. President Trump has also made mention of Title IX , a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination, as his means of ‘protecting women in women’s sports’ while excluding and perhaps discriminating against transgender athletes.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers around the country have fought to create more inclusionary policies. California, currently, allows transgender athletes to participate in sports through the high school level; and their policy is based on gender identity rather than genetics. The Olympics in LA in 2028 are going to be a contentious one to watch on this issue as the stage is being set for inclusive California to be hosting the Olympics which, under the IOC, may very well end the inclusionary practices that have been in place since 2000.
Conclusion
The American people also seem to have moved closer toward President Trump’s positioning on this issue with a recent Pew Research Center poll showing that 66% of Americans believe that transgender athletes ought to participate on sports teams, or in sporting divisions, that match the sex that was assigned to them at birth. This positioning though seems to lack nuance that historical perspective may provide such as stories like Stella Walsh whose own gender was a bit more complicated than just “male” or “female.”
Though a decision has yet to be made, it does seem that the IOC is interested in repeating history by bringing back these gender confirmation tests – even though there are decades worth of false positives, mixed results, and conflicting bodies of evidence in the research literature. It seems unfair and hypocritical that this policy is only regarding women’s sports and does not appear to be an expectation on the men’s side of the Olympics. There is a lot that is going to be decided in 2026 as we move closer to Los Angeles 2028; but the IOC would be wise to review some of their own history and decisions.
Engagement Resources
- Testing sex and gender in sports; reinventing, reimagining and reconstructing histories (Heggie, 2010) –https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3007680/#:~:text=For%20men%20there%20is%20no,the%20phrase%20’sex%20testing‘
- Pew Research Polls – https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/
- Decision to Abolish Gender Testing at Sydney Olympics Supported By Yale Physician (Yale School of Medicine, 2000) – https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/decision-to-abolish-gender-testing-at-sydney-olympics-supported-by-yale-physician/