Athletes are recommending a ban on heterosexual competitors at the Olympics

Athletes have praised the International Olympic Committee’s decision to ban transgender women from competing in the 2028 Los Angeles Games, hailing it as a “huge” victory for women’s sports.

“The IOC is doing the right thing and implementing a sex test. At the Olympics in LA, women’s sports will be women-only,” Jennifer Sey, a former member of the US women’s national artistic gymnastics team, wrote on X shortly after the announcement.

“This is huge. Well done IOC.”

Sey, who is also the founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics — an apparel brand that says it aims to protect women’s competition — has been a vocal advocate on the issue.

Other former Olympians voiced similar support.

Sharron Davies – who represented Great Britain at the Olympics and European Championships, and now works in the UK House of Lords – also praised the decision.

“Thank you very much[d] the IOC has deemed it necessary to use results, science and logic to protect the women’s category and restore fair and safe sports for women and girls,” he wrote in X, while reposting the IOC’s announcement.

“It saddens me that it was given so easily ten years ago. But it is important that we know all women and girls deserve their sports, apart from men, not just the best.”

The new policy limits eligibility for women’s Olympic events to biological women, determined by a one-time SRY genetic test. It will go into effect at the 2028 Summer Games in LA.

The IOC said the change was aimed at “protecting the fairness, safety and integrity of the women’s division,” noting that the rule does not and will not apply to indoor or recreational sports.

It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women compete at the Olympic level. No transgender woman competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games.

After the executive committee meeting, the IOC published a 10-page policy document that further restricts female athletes such as two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya with medical conditions known as differences in gender development, or DSD.

The IOC and its president, Kirsty Coventry, want a clear policy instead of continuing to advise the sport’s governing bodies, which have previously made their own rules.

“In the Olympic Games, even small limits can be the difference between victory and defeat,” said Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, in a statement. “Therefore, it is very clear that it will not be good for natural men to compete in the women’s category.”

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