US Olympic committee exploring sex testing options for women’s sports

New York – The leadership of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has taken up the issue of mandatory gender testing Protecting women’s sports of biologically trans athletes during a press conference at its media summit on Tuesday.

USOPC President Sarah Hirshland declined to answer whether she would personally support mandatory genetic testing to protect female groups when asked by Fox News Digital, after… President Donald Trump She suggested at a press conference in August that there would be a “very strong form” of gender testing to keep biological males out of women’s competitions at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Hirshland said she would support any decisions made by global governing bodies and individual governing bodies in the United States regarding her sports.

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“We are here to be supportive and helpful,” Hirshland said. “But ultimately, determining eligibility for competitions has to be done at the level of the individual sport, whether that be at the global or national level.”

However, in July, the USOC updated its athlete safety policy to indicate compliance with Trump’s executive order to “keep men out of women’s sports,” and US governing bodies in turn changed their trans athlete participation policy to comply with the USOC’s new guidance.

No single US governing body currently uses sex testing to protect the category of women. World Athletics and World Boxing are the two largest global governing bodies that use gender testing.

USOPC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jonathan Venoff said regarding regular gender testing for women’s sports, “The expectation is that this is where global sports and international sports will go.”

“Fortunately, the executive order designed to protect women’s sports in the United States is very consistent with the international trend,” Finoff added.

Finoff also said that the SRY gene tests used by World Athletics and World Boxing are “not common” in the United States, but he suggested that the USOPC is currently exploring options for using gender testing options for its own teams, and that he expects other global governing bodies to “follow its lead.”

“It’s not necessarily common to do this particular test in the United States, so our goal with this was to help identify the laboratories and the options for athletes to be able to do this test, and based on that experience, to know that some other international federations could potentially follow suit,” Venoff said.

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Presentation in a World Athletics A panel in Tokyo revealed in September that between 50 and 60 athletes with masculine biological advantages have reached finals in the female category at world and continental championships since 2000.

The committee was chaired by World Athletics Head of Health and Science, Dr. Stefan Bermon, who said Gender tests They were necessary because of the “overrepresentation” of DSD (differences in sexual development) athletes among the finalists, according to multiple reports.

Last October, United Nations She said nearly 900 biological females did not make it to the podium because they were beaten by transgender athletes.

The results were compiled by Reem Al-Salem, the United Nations rapporteur on violence against women, entitled “Violence against women and girls in sport.”

The report said that more than 600 athletes did not win medals in more than 400 competitions in 29 sports, with a total of more than 890 medals, according to information obtained until March 30.

“The replacement of the women’s athletics category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes missing out on opportunities, including medals, when competing against males,” the report said.

The new president of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry, She addressed the topic of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports in her first news conference since taking office in June, and said there was “overwhelming support” from IOC members for protecting the female category.

“We understand that there will be differences depending on the sport, but it was very clear from members that we have to protect the women’s category, first and foremost to ensure fairness,” Coventry said. “But we need to do this through a scientific approach and involving international consortia that have already done a lot of work in this area.”

The new president added that there was “unanimous” support for reaching agreement on how to amend the policy, and suggested that the IOC could take inspiration from the World Athletics policy, which restricts biological males from competing in women’s sports if those males have reached puberty.

“It was very clear from members that the discussion around this needs to be driven by medical and scientific research at its core, so we are looking at the facts and the nuances and including the international federations who have done a lot of this work… sitting at the table and engaging with us because every sport is different,” she said.

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President Donald Trump delivers his remarks after signing an executive order establishing a White House Olympics Task Force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics on August 5, 2025. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/TPX Pictures of the Day)

January New York Times/Ipsos Poll It found that the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, do not believe transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports.

“I’m thinking Transgender mathematics “Which athletes who were male at birth but currently identify as female do you think 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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