Olympics set to ban transgender athletes from female sports ahead of Los Angeles Games: report

The International Olympic Committee is headed toward an across-the-board ban on transgender athletes from female sports following a review of scientific studies showing that male competitors have inherent physical advantages even after testosterone suppression.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry, a former Olympic swimmer from Zimbabwe, signaled the committee’s direction last year by appointing a task force to study the issue after two sex-disputed boxers won women’s gold medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The committee is poised to announce the decision as early as next year after a presentation last week in Lausanne, Switzerland, by Dr. Jane Thornton, director of the IOC’s Health, Medicine, and Science Department, according to a Monday report in The Times of London.

“It was a very scientific, factual and unemotional presentation which quite clearly laid out the evidence,” a source told the Times.

The decision could be announced as early as February at the 145th IOC Session in Milan, which means any policy change would be in place well ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

A blanket prohibition would represent a stark change from the IOC status quo, which places the onus on the international sports governing bodies to determine their own eligibility rules on women’s competition.

Under that regime, two boxers — Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting — were allowed to compete at the Paris Games despite being disqualified from the 2023 World Boxing Championships after the International Boxing Association ruled them ineligible following sex testing.

The same year, the IOC expelled the association as its sports governing body for boxing over allegations of corruption, which allowed both Khelif and Lin to compete based on their passports identifying them as women.

The policy change would also extend to athletes with differences in sex development, a condition in which children are born with ambiguous genitalia and often raised as girls, but have undescended testes and produce male-level testosterone at puberty.

Both Khelif and Lin are believed to have the DSD condition, although they have not commented on the speculation and have insisted they are women.

Coventry signaled in June that changes were coming when she announced the eligibility review for women’s sports, saying she held a “pause and reflect” workshop with IOC members that revealed “overwhelming support for the idea that we must protect the female category.”

🔺 EXCLUSIVE: Transgender women to be banned from all female Olympic events

IOC likely to announce new policy early in new year after findings of a scientific review about the permanent physical advantages of being born male https://t.co/KBywd9ZFU5

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) November 10, 2025

The IOC said in a statement that “no decisions” have been made on the sex-eligibility issue, although the work is ongoing.

“An update was given by the IOC’s Director of Health, Medicine and Science to the IOC Members last week during the IOC commission meetings,” the IOC said in an email to The Washington Times. “The working group is continuing its discussions on this topic and no decisions have been taken yet. Further information will be provided in due course.”

Advocates for single-sex female sports cheered the anticipated rule change, calling it long overdue.

“This is what we have been waiting for. The IOC will do the right thing — ban men from women’s sports,” said Jennifer Sey, CEO of XX-XY Athletics, on X. “There was no scientific review needed if you just used basic reasoning and … your eyes. But we got there. Kudos to the IOC.”

The updated policy would allow the committee to avoid a potential clash ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games with President Trump, who has said he will deny visas to transgender athletes seeking to compete in women’s Olympic events.

New Zealand women’s weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender Olympian at the 2021 Tokyo Games, but received a “did not finish” after failing to complete any lifts.

Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, noted that blue states still allow scholastic athletes to compete based on gender identity.

“The IOC will follow the science and bar male athletes from women’s Olympic events,” said Ms. Libby on X. “Common sense prevails … but not for Maine girls, as @GovJanetMills and the Democrat majority refuse to acknowledge biological reality.”