Sex verification testing is increasingly being proposed in sports policies, including by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to determine eligibility for female athletes in the 2026 Winter Games.

Sex testing has a problematic history as unreliable, expensive, invasive, and discriminatory, yet could be used to enforce bans that baselessly exclude transgender and intersex people at all levels of sport.

Facts:

• Policies to exclude transgender and intersex people, and testing measures to enforce the policies, threaten the privacy and safety of all women and girls who want to play sports, including in the Olympics.
• The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOC) decision to require testing of female athletes follows an inaccurate, discriminatory, and nonbinding executive orderfrom President Donald Trump targeting transgender people. In contrast to USOC’s early compliance, some sports governing bodies decided against sex verification testing, choosing instead to gather input and data to draft policy and design any implementation.
• “Sex verification” can include invasive screenings of anatomy, chromosomes, and hormone levels. Results are not always clear, or conclusive. Science and medicine recognize there is a range of diversity in human biology and gender identity, and that diversity does not confer an automatic advantage in sports.
• Testing may result in women discovering they are intersex, with variations in sex chromosomes and other characteristics. Such tests may publicly “out” a woman as intersex.
• Intersex women are women with variations in their sex traits, including chromosomes, hormones, or reproductive anatomy. These may also be called Differences of Sex Development (DSD). An estimated 2% of the population has a variation in their sex traits, but the true figure is likely higher.
• U.S. Olympic hopefuls were subjected to the “SRY” genetic test, but there is no one test that can determine someone’s sex. Women do not always have XX chromosomes. Some women do not have ovaries or a uterus, or hormones consistently within a specific range.
• The scientist who discovered the SRY gene, which typically lives on the Y chromosome and is used for sex testing, stated that it should not be used for sex testing.
• Testing results may baselessly block transgender and intersex women from participating, despite a lack of evidence that differences in sex characteristics or sex assigned at birth offers inherent advantage in sport, as already determined by the International Olympic Committee and its panels of medical experts.
• Testing to exclude athletes based on hormone levels is unreliable, as hormones are highly individualized, and vary widely based on ethnic background, age, body type, menstrual cycles, even time of day. Up to 10% of people assigned female at birth have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), which often presents with higher testosterone levels.
• Compulsory “sex testing” discriminates against women. A blood test or cheek swab, testing required only for women, adds a barrier to participation in sports not required of men.
• Forced genetic testing invades the privacy of all women and girls. Women are mandated to disclose their personal genetic and medical information to governing bodies to play the sport they love. In states with bans, female students and their families may be forced to decide between enduring these invasive measures, or giving up their sport.
• Bans and efforts to enforce bans, at all levels of sport, do not remedy inequality and inequity in sports. There are far more impactful, widespread, and proven challenges for women and girls in sports including inequitable access to facilities, pay, and marketing; lack of quality coaching; and harassment and abuse from coaches and fans.

Additional Facts about the Olympics, Transgender People, and Sex Testing:

• Out of 200,000 Olympians who have qualified for the Games since transgender people were formally included in IOC policy starting in 2004, only one was an out transgender woman.
• False allegations were made at the 2024 Paris Games by a discredited governing body against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who is cisgender (not transgender) and has never said she is intersex. Sex testing policies encourage suspicion of women due to their appearance or competence in sport. This can result in gender speculation and harassment, primarily targeted at women of color.
• The International Olympic Committee (IOC) ended sex verification in 1999.
• Sex testing in the Olympics dates back to the 1930s, and included genital inspections by male doctors in public groups through the 1960s. Sex testing continued through the 1990s, and now includes forced genetic testing and medical exams, invoked via widespread mandates or targeted based on speculation about a particular woman.
• IOC guidelines released in 2021 and created in consultation with medical, athletic and human rights professionals, state there should be “NO PRESUMED ADVANTAGE BASED ON SEX ASSIGNED AT BIRTH OR SEX CHARACTERISTICS.”
• The IOC’s 2021 guidelines also removed testosterone level requirements and mandates for medical intervention for intersex athletes, leaving eligibility decisions to each sport’s international governing body. In November 2025, the new IOC president indicated she intends to restrict participation in women’s sports for transgender and intersex women.
• Sex verification testing now being required of U.S. Olympic hopefuls costs at least $250 per athlete and takes time away from training, adding more barriers to equity and success for women athletes.
• Testing and evaluations to allow participation of younger athletes in states with bans against trans youth cost families, schools, and leagues anywhere from $1,000 to $15,000+ per athlete.

Additional History of Discriminatory and Racist Targeting

• Historically, intersex women around the world have been targeted by sports bodies and governments under harmful and unscientific sex verification policies. Policies have been enforced via widespread mandates or targeted individual women based on speculation about her sex.
• Under these policies, women with intersex traits—often Black and Brown women from the global South—have been subjected to invasive tests and examinations, public humiliation, and harassment.
• Women in sports with known variations in their sex traits have been forced to alter their bodies to be allowed to play, such as Caster Semenya, who said she “went through hell” as her health declined when she was forced to alter her body’s hormones.
• International Sports Federations have often established the prevailing worldwide eligibility standards for their respective sports. In September, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) and World Athletics (IAAF) both mandated chromosome testing—a discriminatory policy that targets all women, and can ban or “out” transgender and intersex women. Other federations, including World Aquatics, World Boxing, and World Rugby, have introduced similar discriminatory restrictions.
• The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) implemented a new restrictive policy in July 2025, telling its national governing bodies to comply with the executive order from President Trump to prevent transgender and intersex women from competing in sports. It’s not yet clear how USOPC’s directive will be applied by many of the US governing bodies of sport—but USOPC’s haste to preemptively apply testing rules proposed by FIS suggests that exclusionary policies may be widely in place by the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Summary

• All women and girls have the right to participate in athletics, including those born with variations in their sex traits. Blanket bans and exclusions are often based on unscientific and inaccurate bias about sex traits conferring advantage.
• Rather than “protecting women,” policies that ban or discriminate against transgender people, and the testing to enforce the policies, threaten all women and girls with invasive and unsafe evaluations. These policies and testing requirements also spread discriminatory and oppressive beliefs about women and girls’ bodies and abilities.
• Sex testing harms all women by violating their privacy and outing their private medical information. They give up their privacy while governing bodies dictate if they are “woman enough” to play women’s sports.
• All women should be allowed to compete in the sport they love, free from invasive sex testing, restrictions, discrimination, and forced changes to their own bodies.
• Success in sports, especially at elite levels, is a result of a multitude of factors well beyond the composition of an athlete’s body, genetic makeup, sex assigned at birth, or gender identity. Factors proven to contribute to success:
  • Exposure, access, and encouragement of sports without limits based on gender, sex, or ability;
  • Equitable access to programs and facilities;
  • Higher family income, and ability of family to be available and involved in a child’s athletic participation and development;
  • Access to quality coaches, teachers, and programs;
  • Community-supported participation, skills development, safe competition, and updated facilities to serve all;
  • Support for each athlete’s personal drive, discipline, and heart.