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NEW YORK – Leaders of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) addressed the issue of mandatory sex testing to protect women’s sports from biological trans male athletes during a press conference at their media summit on Tuesday.
USOPC Chairwoman Sarah Hirshland declined to answer whether she would personally support mandatory genetic testing to protect the women’s categories when asked by Pak Gazette Digital, after President Donald Trump suggested at an August press conference that there would be a “very strong form” of sexual testing to keep biological men out of women’s competitions at the Los Angeles Olympics. 2028.
Hirshland said he would support any decisions the world governing bodies and individual US governing bodies make for their respective sports.
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“We are here to provide support and help,” Hirshland said. “But at the end of the day, defining eligibility for competitions has to happen at the individual sport level, whether at the world or national level.”
However, in July, the USOPC updated its athlete safety policy to indicate compliance with Trump’s executive order “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports” and the US governing bodies, in turn, changed their trans athlete participation policy to comply with the new USOPC guidance.
No governing body in the United States currently uses sex testing to protect female status. World Athletics and World Boxing are the two largest global governing bodies that use sex testing.
Dr. Jonathan Finnoff, medical director of the USOPC, said, regarding regular sex testing for women’s sports, “the expectation is that this is where global sports, international sports, will come.”
Finnoff added: “And fortunately, the executive order designed to protect women’s sports in the United States is very consistent with the international trend.”
Finnoff also 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, know that some other international federations will probably do the same thing,” Finnoff said.
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A presentation in a world athletics A panel held in Tokyo in September revealed that between 50 and 60 athletes with male biological advantages have been finalists in the women’s category at world and continental championships since 2000.
The panel was headed by the head of the World Athletics Department of Health and Science, Dr. Stéphane Bermon, who stated sex tests were necessary due to an “overrepresentation” of athletes with DSD (differences in sexual development) among the finalists, according to multiple reports.
Last October, the United Nations said that almost 900 biological women have not stood on the podium because they were defeated by trans athletes.
The findings were compiled by Reem Alsalem, UN rapporteur on violence against women and titled “Violence against women and girls in sports.”
The report says that more than 600 athletes did not obtain medals in more than 400 competitions in 29 sports, totaling more than 890 medals, according to information obtained as of March 30.
“The replacement of the women’s sports category with a mixed category has caused an increasing number of athletes to lose opportunities, including medals, when competing against men,” the report states.
The new president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kirsty Coventry, He addressed the issue of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports in his first news conference since taking office in June, saying there is “overwhelming support” from IOC members to protect the women’s category.
“We understand there will be differences depending on the sport… but members made it very clear that we have to protect the women’s category, first and foremost to ensure fairness,” Coventry said. “But we have to do it with a scientific approach and the inclusion of international federations that have already done a lot of work in this area.”
The new president added that there is “unanimous” support for reaching an 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 men have gone through male puberty.
“Members made it very clear that the discussion on this needs to be done with medical and scientific research at the center, so we are looking at the facts and the nuances and the inclusion of the international federations that have done a lot of this work… coming to the table and sharing with us because every sport is different,” he said.
President Donald Trump delivers a speech after signing an executive order to create 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 Images of the Day)
A January New York Times/Ipsos poll 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.
“Thinking of transgender athletes – that is, athletes who were male at birth but currently identify as female – do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports?” the survey asks.
Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said that biological men who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports.
