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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to news that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) updated its policies to ensure only biological women compete in women’s sports and will use genetic testing as an enforcement measure.
Leavitt attributed the change to Trump’s executive order “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
“You can’t change your sex. President Trump’s executive order protecting women’s sports made this happen!” Leavitt said.
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Trump signed the order in February of last year, shortly after taking office. The order gives the secretary of state authority to use measures to get the IOC to change its policy to protect the women’s category.
“The Secretary of State will use all appropriate and available measures to ensure that the International Olympic Committee amends the rules governing Olympic sporting events to promote fairness, safety and the best interests of female athletes, ensuring that eligibility to participate in women’s sporting events is determined based on sex and not gender identity or reduced testosterone,” the order states.
Last July, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) changed its athlete safety policy to enforce Trump’s mandate, directly citing the executive order.
Then, when Trump announced the creation of an Olympic task force in August, he declared that “evidence” would be used to enforce protections for women’s competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“There will be some form of very strong testing,” Trump said when asked about the use of genetic testing at LA28.
In October, at the USOPC Winter Olympics media summit, chief medical officer Dr. Jonathan Finnoff said that SRY gene testing used by World Athletics and World Boxing is “not common” in the U.S., but suggested that the USOPC is currently exploring options to employ sex testing options for its own teams and that he hopes other global governing bodies will “do the same.”
“It’s not necessarily very common to do this specific test in the United States, so our goal was to help identify labs and options for athletes to be able to do that test, and based on that experience, and knowing that some other international federations will probably follow suit,” Finnoff said.
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Now, the IOC says it will use SRY gene testing for any competitor in the women’s category in any Olympic event.
“Eligibility for any women’s category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a single SRY gene test,” the new policy states.
The new policy has sent shockwaves through the ongoing American conflict over women’s sports.
The United States Supreme Court is currently weighing two cases related to policies regarding trans athletes.
The attorneys general leading the fight to protect women’s sports in those cases, John McCuskey of West Virginia and Raul Labrador of Idaho, reacted Thursday to news of the policy change.
McCuskey told Pak Gazette Digital that he was “very pleased with the IOC’s decision to comply with widespread common sense.”
McCuskey also credited Trump for his influence on the change.
“President Trump showed up. I don’t think the IOC would be doing this if President Trump hadn’t taken a bold leadership position on this,” he said.
While McCuskey awaits a SCOTUS decision on the case his state is fighting, he believes the COI’s decision reflects the belief that society at large is aligned with his side. McCuskey’s team presented oral arguments before the justices in January.
“I think it’s probably further evidence that, even as we were making our arguments, the underlying social understanding of this issue is very different than what the left thought it was,” McCuskey said.
Labrador said he looks forward to the decisions in his case.
“The IOC just announced that women’s Olympic sports will be limited to biological women starting in 2028. This is a huge step forward for equity and safety in women’s athletics. I am proud that my office led the defense of Idaho’s law by doing the same before the U.S. Supreme Court in January. We look forward to the Court’s decision in our case this summer,” Labrador said.
Many prominent activists who have led the effort to protect women’s sports, including Riley Gaines and Jennifer Sey, have insisted that genetic testing would be necessary to enforce any policy change.
Some liberals are in an uproar
Civil rights lawyer Alejandra Caraballo expressed her objection to the IOC policy on BlueSky, criticizing the new genetic testing requirements.
“This testing regime does not conform to fundamental human rights principles. And I’m not even talking about trans athletes. Only women will be subjected to this. They did not say who would pay for these tests that cost thousands of dollars. That is decisive for athletes from poor countries,” Caraballo wrote.
Nathan Kalman-Lamb, a sociology professor at the University of New Brunswick, criticized the new policy on BlueSky.
Trans rights activists take part in a protest against the ban on hormone blockers on April 20, 2024 in London. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
“The (egregious) International Olympic Committee has just formally banned trans participation in sport,” Kalman-Lamb wrote.
“The IOC has just formally unleashed waves of additional harm in the name of sporting ‘justice’. Sport will never be able to justify the dehumanization this ruling demands.”
Transgender comedian Stacy Cay spoke about X.
“There were no transgender women at the Olympics, but there are many intersex women who are about to discover that, according to the IOC, they are not women. It will be fun,” Cay wrote.
