Donald Trump signed an executive decree on Wednesday prohibiting transgender women from participating in female sport categories, a ban on the world centerpiece in the second half of his second term, the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
President Trump said the US government would deny visas for transgender Olympians who wanted to participate in the Games.
“The war against female sports is over,” said Trump. Asked about the 2028, he added: “My administration will not stay there and watches the men beat and beat the female athletes.”
Trump also sent a warning to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), saying that he wanted the director body “changes everything that has to do with the Olympic Games and have to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject [trangender inclusion]”Before the games.
Only a handful of openly transgender and non -binary athletes have ever participated in the Olympic Games. Laurel Hubbard, New Zealand weightlifting, was the first openly transgender woman to compete in the Olympic Games when she participated in Tokyo 2020. Runner of the American intermediate distance Nikki Hiltz, who was assigned to a woman at birth, is Transgender and non -binary outing in 2021, and finished seventh in the 1500m women’s final in Paris last summer. Canadian footballer Quinn is also non -binary and transgender, and was part of the team that won gold in Tokyo.
Although there are very few transgender athletes participating in Olympic sport, the broader question of gender categorization was a major subject of discussion in Paris 2024.
The controversy was centered on boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, which participated in the female competition despite having been disqualified from the Women’s Boxing World Championships a year earlier in India after having pretended to failed an eligibility test Between the sexes established by the International Boxing Association. The IBA did not specify why the boxers failed the test, but only specified the two testosterone exams did not suffer. Neither Khelif, 25, nor the double world champion, 29 years old, are transgender or intersex.
Meanwhile, athletes with higher testosterone levels naturally associated with differences in sexual development (DSD), such as the South African runner Semersya, found themselves more and more marginalized by tightening restrictions on the levels of testosterone in The categories of women. Semenya refused to take testosterone suppressants and brought global athletics before the sporting court (case), which judged that the regulations were discriminatory but necessary and proportioned to ensure fair competition.
The approach of the International Olympic Committee in Paris 2024 was that each sport defines its own parameters concerning transgender, intersex and DSD athletes. Some sports, such as athletics and swimming, have judged that transgender women who have gone through male puberty cannot compete in female events, while rugby, boxing and cycling have brought more strict restrictions on Transgender athletes who participate in their female categories.
Trump’s decree, which is largely focused on transgender participation in school and collegial sports, is likely to deal with important reaction and legal challenges in the United States. But its potential impact on the Olympic Games can be a questionable point. Even if new transgender athletes emerge over the next three years, the International Olympic Committee (CIO) could then have its own firm policy in place to refuse them participation, with or without pressure from the American president.
The IOC will elect a new president this year, and Lord Coe – which currently directs world athletics – is the favorite to succeed the president in place of the CIO Thomas Bach. COE supervised the ban on transgender women of the international athletics competition in 2023 and has already specified its position.
“I think the International Olympic Committee needs a very, very clear policy in this space,” Coe told BBC Sport in November. “And the protection of the female category, for me, is absolutely non -negotiable. If you are not ready to do it, and this is where international federations expect a lead, then you will really lose female sport and I am not ready to see this happen . »»
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