USOPC leaders address protection of women's sports, use of sex tests amid global resistance to trans athletes
U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) leadership addressed the topic of mandatory sex testing to protect women's sports from biological male trans athletes during a press conference at its media summit on Tuesday.
USOPC President Sarah Hirshland declined to answer whether she personally would support mandatory genetic testing to protect the women's categories when asked by Fox News Digital, after President Donald Trump suggested at an August press conference there would be a "very strong form" of sex testing to keep biological males out of women's competitions at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Hirshland said she would support whatever decisions world governing bodies and individual U.S. governing bodies make for their respective sports.
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"We're here to be supportive and helpful," Hirshland said. "But at the end of the day, defining eligibility for competitions has to happen at the individual sport level, whether that's globally or nationally."
However, in July, the USOPC updated its athlete safety policy to indicate compliance with Trump's "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order, and U.S. governing bodies in turn changed their trans athlete participation policy to comply with the USOPC's new guidance.
No single U.S. governing body currently uses sex testing to protect the women's category. World Athletics and World Boxing are the two biggest world governing bodies to use sex testing.
USOPC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jonathan Finnoff said, with regard to regular sex testing for women's sports, "The expectation is that this is, this is where world sport, international sport, will go."
Finnoff added, "And fortunately, the executive order that is designed to protect women's sports in the United States is very consistent with the trend internationally."
Finnoff also said that the SRY gene tests being used by World Athletics and World Boxing are "not common" in the U.S., but suggested the USOPC is currently exploring options to employ sex testing options for its own teams and that he expects other world governing bodies to "follow suit."
"It's not necessarily very common to get this specific test in the United States and so we our goal in that was helping to identify labs and options for the athletes to be able to get that testing, and based on that experience, into knowing that some other international federations likely will be following suit," Finnoff said.
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A presentation at a World Athletics panel in Tokyo in September revealed that 50 to 60 athletes with male biological advantages have been finalists in the female category at global and continental championships since 2000.
The panel was led by the head of the World Athletics Health and Science Department, Dr. Stéphane Bermon, who said sex tests were necessary because of an "over-representation" of DSD (differences of sex development) athletes among finalists, per multiple reports.
Last October, the United Nations said nearly 900 biological females have fallen short of the podium because they were beaten by trans athletes.
The findings were compiled by Reem Alsalem, the U.N.'s rapporteur on violence against women and titled "Violence against women and girls in sports."
The report said that more than 600 athletes did not medal in more than 400 competitions in 29 sports, totaling over 890 medals, according to information obtained as of March 30.
"The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males," the report said.
The new president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kirsty Coventry, addressed the topic of transgender athletes competing in women's sports at her first news conference since taking over in June and said that there is "overwhelming support" by IOC members to protect the female category.
"We understand that there'll be differences depending on the sport … but it was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost to ensure fairness," Coventry said. "But we need to do that with a scientific approach and the inclusion of the international federations who have already done a lot of work in this area."
The new president added that there is "unanimous" support for coming to an agreement about how to amend the policy and suggested the IOC may take inspiration from the World Athletics policy, which restricts biological males from competing in women's sports if those males have gone through male puberty.
"It was very clear from the membership the discussion around this has to be done with medical and scientific research at the core, so we are looking at the facts and the nuances and the inclusion of the international federations that have done so much of this work … having a seat at table and sharing with us because every sport is different," she said.
A January New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don't think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women's sports.
"Thinking about transgender female athletes — meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female — do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports?" the survey asked.
Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women's sports.
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