Olympic Committee’s New Eligibility Rules Exclude Transgender Athletes and Expands Policing of Women’s Bodies

TORONTO – Recent changes announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) mark a significant shift away from the Olympic Movement’s stated commitments to dignity, inclusion, and human rights. The Olympic Charter affirms that “the practice of sport is a human right.” The IOC’s new eligibility framework on who gets to participate in women’s sports is fundamentally at odds with that principle.

The introduction of new rules restricting participation in women’s sport categories to “biological females”, determined through mandatory genetic screening and testing, imposes exclusionary criteria. These measures not only bar transgender women from competition, but target and disqualify cisgender women with differences in sex development.

This policy will apply to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games and beyond, despite the absence of clear evidence that any transgender women were poised to participate in those Games. The IOC’s approach aligns itself with the U.S. government’s 2025 executive order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” which threatened to withdraw funding from organizations that permit transgender athletes to compete and to deny visas to certain athletes seeking to participate in the Los Angeles Olympics. The convergence of international sport governance with exclusionary state policy raises serious concerns about the politicization of athletic participation and the erosion of independent, rights-respecting governance.

“While framed as a measure to ensure fairness, this policy imposes exclusionary criteria that will disproportionately harm transgender women and also place cisgender women at risk, particularly those with natural biological variations,” says Aaden Pearson, Trans Rights Legal Fellow at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. “The policy authorizes intrusive scrutiny of women’s bodies and asserts authority over who gets to participate as a ‘real’ woman under the guise of regulation.”

This policy will have detrimental impact on Canadian athletes that may be barred from participating in the Olympics because of this policy who otherwise would qualify to represent Canada.

A rights-respecting approach to sport must be grounded in inclusion, evidence, and proportionality. Fairness and human dignity are not mutually exclusive. The legitimacy of sport depends on ensuring that all athletes are able to participate without discrimination.

The CCLA calls on the IOC and national sporting bodies to:

• Immediately reconsider the implementation of these eligibility rules;
• Ensure that any policies governing participation in sport are evidence-based, proportionate, and consistent with international human rights obligations; and
• Uphold the principle that sport must be accessible to all, without discrimination.

The legitimacy of sport depends not only on fairness in competition, but on fairness in access. Policies that exclude, surveil, and stigmatize athletes have no place in a rights-respecting sporting system.