The CEO of an anti-trans clothing company is trying to bribe professional women’s soccer players into speaking out against trans athletes – but none of them are taking her up on it.
Jennifer Sey, a retired artistic gymnast who won the 1986 National Gymnastics Championship, runs the anti-trans clothing company XX-XY Athletics, which donates money from each purchase to organizations fighting against trans inclusion in sports.
Sey regularly spouts anti-trans rhetoric on social media and recently wrote that she’d give $10,000 to the next player in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) “to stand up in defense of keeping women’s soccer female.”
“A full-throated defense,” she emphasized. “A press conference. Nothing mealy-mouthed.”
Her offer aimed to build on an anti-trans New York Postessay by NWSL player Elizabeth Eddy in the wake of her team, the Angel City Football Club, signing an intersex player. Eddy claimed to be fighting for the “integrity of women’s sports.” In other words, she was arguing to exclude trans and intersex players from women’s leagues.
After Sey’s post, others offered to add money to the pot. Two anonymous people added $5,000, and Clay Travis – founder of the anti-LGBTQ+ sports site Outkick – offered $15,000, bringing the total to $35,000.
But according to Out, not a single player has taken Sey up on her offer. What’s more, there are reportedly no trans players currently in the league.
In fact, after Eddy published her essay, Angel City captain Sarah Gorden and vice captain Angelina Anderson spoke out in support of trans athletes.
“That article does not speak for this team and this locker room,” Gorden said during an October 30 press conference.
She said her teammates were “hurt,” “harmed,” and “disgusted” by Eddy’s words.
“We don’t agree with the things written, for a plethora of reasons, but mostly the undertones come across as transphobic and racist as well.” (The essay used a photo of cisgender woman player Barbra Banda, who is from Zambia.)
Anderson added that Angel City “is a place for everyone” and that Los Angeles is “a place that was founded upon inclusivity and love for all people.”
Sey, on the other hand, appeared on Fox News after Eddy published her essay to claim that there are “several males” in the NWSL. She then claimed Banda, who plays for the Orlando Pride, is a man.
The NWSL does not have a formal policy when it comes to gender eligibility, which has earned the league criticism from folks on all sides of the debate.
“You have to take a stance,” sports writer Julie Kliegman told The Athletic. “It has to be clear, it has to be transparent, and it has to be inclusive. Otherwise, this neutral ground isn’t really so neutral, because it’s leaving room for players like Eddy to steer the conversation.”
Perth has won the 2030 Gay Games, an event that is set to bring thousands of people to city to participate in sport, cultural and community events. The announcement was made in Valencia Spain, the city that will host the 2026 games.
The final choice was between Denver, Colorado and Perth, but the process began with 25 cities across five continents bidding for the event. Unlike the Olympics, there is no qualifying round, those who are willing to make the trip to the host city and take part are welcomed, and there is no requirement to disclose your sexuality.
Since its initial set up in San Franciso, which hosted the inaugural event in 1982 and the follow up in 1986, the event has been held in many cities. The 2026 Gay Games will be held in Valencia, Spain from 27th June until 4th July.
Hannah Caldas has been banned by World Aquatics for five years for refusing to take part in a gender-verification test, but she says if the suspension is the price she has to pay to “protect my most intimate medical information” then she is “happy to pay”.
Caldas, who also goes by Ana, took part in the World Aquatics Masters Championships in Doha in 2024, finishing first in her age category in the women’s 100m freestyle, and also competed in the Spring Nationals run by US Masters Swimming (USMS) in San Antonio, Texas in April, winning several events.
In response to the Masters Swimming competition, anti-trans Republican governor Ken Paxton launched an investigation into the organisation and claimed in a suit it violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act by allowing trans participation.
Paxton’s office sought $10,000 for each alleged trade practice act violation, according to coverage at the time by the Texas Tribune, and the governor labelled Masters Swimming’s policies “insane” and said it “cowered to radical activists pushing gender warfare”.
In August, USMS declared Caldas is eligible to compete in the female category, with a report into her eligibility stating the “documents the swimmer submitted all demonstrate that she was assigned the female sex at birth and that she identifies as female, although she swam in the male category at USMS events 2002-2004”.
However, World Aquatics have ruled the 48-year-old will be suspended for five years until October 2030 and her swimming results from the previous three years – between June 2022 and October 2024 – have been disqualified after she declined to take a gender verification test.
In a statement attributed to a New York Aquatics press release, Caldas declined because “chromosomal tests are invasive and expensive procedures”.
“My life and privacy have been invaded enough”
“My insurance refuses to cover such a test because it is not medically necessary,” she said. “No US state requires genetic tests for recreational sports events like these.
“Not even US Masters Swimming, the national governing body for recreational adult swimming in the US, demands this for any of its events.”
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Caldas continued: “I understand and accept the consequences of not complying with a World Aquatics investigation.
“But if a five-year suspension is the price I must pay to protect my most intimate medical information, then it’s a price I am happy to pay—for myself, and for every other woman who does not want to submit to highly invasive medical testing just to swim in an older-adult competition.”
She added she had been “swimming in sanctioned events for over 30 years” and is “prepared to let it all go”.
“My life and privacy have been invaded enough,” she explained “It is time to prioritise my health and personal safety.”
Lia Thomas reacts after finishing tied for 5th in the 200 Freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on 18 March 2022. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty)
Back in 2022 World Aquatics voted to implement rules which ban trans women from competing in elite races if they have undergone any male puberty.
It was under this policy that trans former University of Pennsylvania swimmer swimmer Lia Thomas, who made history in 2022 as the first trans woman to win a National Collegiate Athletic Association swimming championship, was banned by the swimming body.
Thomas filed a legal dispute against World Aquatics policy with the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland in September 2023.
However, the court rejected her claim that the policy was discriminatory.
As reported by the BBC the ruling outlined that Lia Thomas was “simply not entitled to engage with eligibility to compete in WA competitions” as someone who was no longer a member of USA Swimming – “let alone compete in a WA competition” – and hence was “not sufficiently affected” by the rules to be able to challenge them.
World Aquatics welcomed the court’s decision and said the ruling was a “major step forward in our efforts to protect women’s sports”.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that USA Powerlifting discriminated against a transgender woman by banning her from women’s competitions.
The court determined in an opinion issued Wednesday that preventing JayCee Cooper from competing in women’s categories constitutes unlawful discrimination under the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote that USAPL is “not permitted to deny Cooper the full and equal enjoyment of its place of public accommodation because of her transgenderstatus nor engage in business discrimination as to Cooper because of her transgender status.”
“USA Powerlifting’s policy expressly prohibiting transgender women from competing in the women’s division of a powerlifting competition is facially discriminatory and constitutes direct evidence of discrimination based on sexual orientation under the MHRA’s prohibition against discrimination in business and places of public accommodation,” the opinion states.
Cooper filed charges with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in 2019 after she was denied entry into USAPL women’s competitions, asking for it to uphold a “fair standard” that would allow trans athletes the opportunity to compete in the category of their gender identity.
Cooper then filed a lawsuit against USAPL in 2021, accusing the organization of discrimination. The Ramsey County District Court ruled in 2023 that she had indeed been discriminated against, leading to a 2024 ruling from the Minnesota Court of Appeals which affirmed that discrimination against athletes based on gender identity violates the MHRA.
The appeals court sent the case back down to the district court to determine whether or not USAPL rejected Cooper because of her trans identity, or if the organization had a “legitimate business purpose.” While USAPL claimed that the ban was instated to keep competitions fair, research does not indicate trans athletes have a significant competitive advantage.
A comprehensive review of several studies on trans participation in sports under their gender identity also found that trans athletes, post transition, are “more similar to their gender identity.” It noted that both transgender and cisgender athletes show great variations in ability.
“Because there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether USA Powerlifting has a legitimate business purpose for excluding transgender women from the women’s division, we affirm … Cooper on her claims of sexual orientation and sex discrimination in business,” Hudson continued in the opinion.
Jess Braverman, Legal Director at Gender Justice, which represented Cooper, said in a statement that “this ruling sends a clear and powerful message: transgender people have a right to enjoy public spaces in Minnesota like sporting events, restaurants, and movie theaters, free from targeted discrimination.”
“This decision is a historic victory for fairness, equity, and the fundamental rights of all Minnesotans. While we celebrate this victory, we remain vigilant,” Braverman continued. “Across the country, anti-trans legislation and legal battles continue to threaten the rights and freedom of trans people. We will continue to fight for a world where everyone can compete, belong, and thrive without fear of discrimination.”
The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to create a new working groupon the “protection of the female category” without disclosing its members or process presents an alarming risk for all women athletes, the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) said today.
“This opaque process stands in stark contrast to the comprehensive, transparent, and multi-stakeholder consultation that led to the development of the IOC’s widely-respected Fairness Framework,” said Andrea Florence, executive director of the Sport & Rights Alliance. “A result of extensive research and engagement with athletes, human rights experts, medical professionals, and other impacted groups, this landmark document recognized the complexity of this issue and rejected a one-size-fits-all solution. The IOC appears to be setting aside this valuable body of research and policy in favor of a process that lacks the rigor and inclusivity of its predecessor.”
The alliance acknowledges the sensitive nature of the topic, which is often a target for misinformation, disinformation, and hateful rhetoric. However, the creation of this working group seems to neglect human rights standards previously committed to by the IOC, undermining the legitimacy of the process and the trustworthiness of the policies it will recommend.
Clear communication and transparency are paramount to developing legitimate recommendations. Unlike for the other three working groups – on the Youth Olympics, the Olympic sports program, and commercial partnerships and marketing – the “female category” group’s membership and work plan has not been published, the IOC said, to “protect the integrity of the group and their work.”
“If the IOC truly wants to protect women and girls and promote fairness with an evidence-based approach, it must make room at the table for all perspectives, and ensure its processes are clear and public,” said Steve Cockburn, head of business and human rights for Amnesty International. “The greatest risk is not that the working group might receive public scrutiny, it is that women and girls all over the world – and especially from the Global South – might be subjected to further hate and discrimination and excluded from sport. This is a fundamental issue of safety and equality that cannot be decided in secret.”
The alliance further expressed concern that exclusionary policies can cause a ripple effect that harms all women and girls in sport.
“The IOC’s Fairness Framework made significant gains to protect women and girls in sport,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “The IOC set an important precedent in moving away from surveillance, invasion of privacy, and harmful sex-testing practices that caused decades of trauma and discrimination. It is disappointing to see the leader of global sport now potentially creating a pathway for their return.”
The IOC should work with civil society to create a transparent process to form this working group to ensure its legitimacy and diversity in both membership and approach, the alliance said. The IOC should confirm its mandate is to build upon the principles of its previous inclusive, evidence-based framework. Meaningful consultation with all affected athletes should not be optional; it is essential and necessary for a legitimate process.
“The IOC and this working group should commit to a process that is transparent, inclusive, and grounded in human rights principles,” said Joanna Maranhão, network coordinator at the Sport & Rights Alliance. “The working group’s mandate should be to build upon the 2021 Framework, not to discard it. The future of fair and inclusive sport depends on an open and honest dialogue with all stakeholders – and with impacted athletes at the heart of the process.”
A New York county’s law banning transgender women from playing on female sports teams at county-run parks and recreational facilities has been halted for now.
A state appeals court on Wednesday barred Nassau County from enforcing the ban while a legal challenge brought on behalf of a local women’s roller derby league plays out.
The decision comes after a lower court judge upheld the local law Monday, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, which had sued on the roller derby league’s behalf, vowed to challenge the ruling.
Judge R. Bruce Cozzens had ruled the county ban was “narrowly tailored” and “does not categorically exclude transgender individuals from athletic participation” as they can still play in coed sports leagues.
But the state appellate division, in its decision, said that making the women’s roller derby league become coed would “change the identity of the league,” jeopardizing not just its status with the sport’s governing body but also its ability to grow its membership and find teams to compete against.
Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena, president of the Long Island Roller Rebels, said players were “thrilled” the higher court saw through Nassau County’s “transphobic and cruel ban.”
Gabriella Larios, an attorney with the NYCLU, said the ruling “made it crystal clear that any attempt to ban trans women and girls from sports is prohibited by our state’s anti-discrimination laws.”
Gabriella Larios, staff attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union, at United Skates of America.Jeenah Moon / AP file
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman had proposed the ban as a way to protect girls and women from getting injured while competing against transgender women. It would have affected more than 100 sports facilities in the county on Long Island next to New York City.
The Republican, in an emailed statement, said the county will “continue to protect the integrity and safety of women’s sports.” A spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to follow-up questions about whether it would comply with the judge’s order.
Blakeman first imposed the ban through an executive order, but it was struck down after a lawsuit from the roller derby league and the NYCLU. The county’s Republican-controlled Legislature then passed a law containing the ban, setting off another round of litigation.
Sadie Schreiner, a runner on Rochester Institute of Technology’s track and field team during the 2023-2024 season, said she was turned away from the women’s 200-meter and 400-meter races at SUNY Geneseo’s Early Invitational in March. That was despite Schreiner having qualifying times to make her eligible to race.
“As stated in the complaint, the track meet at issue was open to members of the public. SUNY Geneseo violated New York state law when it excluded Sadie because she is a transgender woman,” said Schreiner’s lawyer, Susie Cirilli, according to Geneseo’s NBC affiliate.
Schreiner signed up to compete in the invitational as an independent athlete, not as a representative of her school. Because of that, her lawsuit claims, she should have avoided problems with a new NCAA rule instituted in February that bars transgender women from competing in girls or women’s sporting events.
The NCAA instituted the rule after President Donald Trump signed an executive order withholding federal funding from academic institutions that allow trans women to compete with cisgender women.
NCAA President Charlie Baker said in February it was important to have consistent rules at sanctioned tournaments.
“We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard,” Baker said in a statement at the time.
But Schreiner’s suit alleges the restrictions put NCAA tournaments in New York out of compliance with state law. Citing the New York State Human Rights Law, the complaint argues state statutes take precedence over NCAA rules.
Of note, a Nassau County judge declined earlier this year to throw out a local ordinance that prohibited transgender participation in women’s sports, despite a legal challenge asserting that the ban went against New York’s human rights protections.
In 2024, Schreiner won the women’s 200-meter and 400-meter races at the invitational.
Earlier this year, 16-year-old AB Hernandez became the target of nationwide hate and harassment when the president of a local school board publicly doxxed the track and field athlete and outed her as transgender. Right-wing activists misgendered her and called her mom “evil;” swarms of adults showed up to heckle her at games; Charlie Kirk pushed state governor Gavin Newsom to condemn her; and President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from California over her participation.
While transgender athletes are very rare, this type of harassment towards them is playing out across the country and internationally. A trans girl was harassedat a soccer game in Bow, New Hampshire, by adult protestors wearing XX/XY armbands, representing an anti-trans sports clothing brand. And in British Columbia, a 9-year-old cis girl was accosted by a grown man who accused her of being trans and demanded that she prove her sex to him.
While research into the relative athletic capabilities of trans and cis women is ongoing, far-right groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Leadership Institute, have been putting hate before science to turn the public against trans athletes since at least 2014. And it’s working.
Laws, rules or regulations currently ban trans athletes from competing in sports consistent with their gender identity in 29 states, with 21 beginning the ban in kindergarten. The majority-conservative Supreme Court announcedthis month that it’ll be taking on the question of the constitutionality of the bans. Meanwhile, the federal government is pressuringstates without bans to change their policies in compliance with a Trump executive order that attempts to institute a nationwide ban.
Trump signs an executive order calling for bans on trans women and girls from women’s sports. Photo by: The White House.
These bans have been successful in part because of a toxic and ruthless ecosystem of far-right influencers, like Riley Gaines, who have formed entire careers around attacking trans athletes by prioritizing hate and misinformation.
“So much of what we see … just seems like it’s wrapped up in really hateful and negative messages that aren’t good for anyone,” says Mary Fry, a professor of sport and exercise psychology at the University of Kansas. “We’re creating issues where maybe we don’t need to.”
Harassment and Mental Health
Grace McKenzie has been deeply affected by these hate campaigns. A lifelong athlete, McKenzie has stayed healthy by playing multiple sports where she’s met “amazing people.” Shortly after she transitioned in 2018, she was thrilled when she was invited to join a women’s rugby team at the afterparty of a Lesbians Who Tech conference.
Grace McKenzie. Photo courtesy of McKenzie.
“Rugby became my home, it was my first queer community, it was the space where I really discovered my own womanhood,” McKenzie told Uncloseted Media. “I could be the sometimes-masculine, soft-feminine person who play[s] rugby and loves sports.”
But that started to change in 2019, when McKenzie and others on her team started to hear rumors that World Rugby was considering a ban on trans athletes. Fearing the loss of her community, she started a petition that racked up 25,000 signatures—but it wasn’t enough, and the ban took effect in 2020.
As anti-trans rhetoric in sports has ramped up, McKenzie says she’s had soul-crushing breakdowns that have left her “sobbing uncontrollably and unconsolably.”
“It would be these waves of such intense despair and rage—it was like going through grief for five years,” she says. “I have to wake up every single day and read about another state or another group of people who say that they don’t want me to exist.”
While McKenzie says she’s found the strength to keep playing where she can, sports psychologist Erin Ayala has seen clients leave sports altogether due to the hate toward trans athletes.
“It can be really difficult when they feel like they’re doing everything right … and they still don’t belong,” says Ayala, the founder of the Minnesota-based Skadi Sport Psychology, a therapy clinic for competitive athletes. “Depression can be really high. They don’t have the strength to keep fighting to show up. And then that can further damage their mental health because they’re not getting the exercise and that sense of social support and community.”
That was the story of Andraya Yearwood, who made national headlines in high school when she and another trans girl placed first and second in Connecticut’s high school track competitions. The vitriol directed at her was intense: Parents circulated petitions to have her banned; crowds cheered for her disqualification; the anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom launched a lawsuit against the state for letting her play; and she faced a torrent of transphobic and racist harassment.
“It’s a very shitty experience,” Yearwood, now 23, told Uncloseted Media.
Fearing more harassment, she quit running in college.
“I understood that collegiate athletics is on a much larger and much more visible scale. … I just didn’t want to go through all that again for the next four years,” she says. “Track obviously meant a lot to me, and to have to let that go was difficult.”
It’s understandable that Yearwood and other trans athletes struggle when they have to ditch their favorite sport. A litany of research demonstrates that playing sports fosters camaraderie and teamwork and improves mental and physical health. Since trans people disproportionately struggle from poor mental health, social isolation and suicidality, these benefits can be especially crucial.
“In some of these cases, kids have been participating with a peer group for years, and then rules were made and all of a sudden they’re pulled away,” says Fry. “It’s a hard world to be a trans individual in, so it’d be easy to feel lonely and separated.”
Caught in the Crossfire
The anti-trans attacks in sports are also affecting cis women. Ayala, a competitive cyclist, remembers one race where she and her trans friend both made the podium. When photos of the event were posted on Facebook, people accused her of being trans, and she was added to a “list of males who have competed in female sports” maintained by Save Women’s Sports.
Ayala isn’t alone. Numerous cis female athletes have been “transvestigated,” or accused of being trans, including Serena Williams and Brittney Griner. During the 2024 Paris Olympics, Donald Trump and Elon Musk publicly accused Algerian boxer Imane Khelif of being trans after her gold medal win, as part of a wave of online hate against her. She would later file a cyberbullying complaint against Musk’s X.
While women of all races have been targeted, Black women have faced harsher scrutiny due to stereotypes that portray them as more masculine.
Yearwood remembers posts that would fixate on her muscle definition and compare her to LeBron James.
“I think that is attributed to the overall hyper-masculinization and de-feminization of Black women, and I know that’s a lot more prevalent for Black trans women,” she says. “It made it easier to come for us in the way that they did.”
Joanna Harper, a post-doctoral scholar at Oregon Health & Science University and one of the world’s leading researchers on the subject, says that the jury is still out on whether the differences in athletic performance between trans and cis women are significant enough to warrant policy changes.
“People want simple solutions, they want things to be black and white, they want good guys and bad guys,” Harper says, adding that the loudest voices against trans women’s participation do not actually care about what the science says.
“This idea that trans women are bigger than cis women, therefore it can’t be fair, is a very simple idea, and so it is definitely one that people who want to create trans people as villains have pushed.”
Even Harper herself has been the victim of the far-right’s anti-trans attacks. Earlier this year, she was featured in a New York Times article where she discussed a study she was working on with funding from Nike into the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on adolescents’ athletic performance.
Riley Gaines and OutKick founder Clay Travis attack Harper’s study on X.
“That Nike chose to fund a study on trans athletes doesn’t actually say that they’re supporting trans athletes. They’re merely supporting research looking into the capabilities of trans athletes,” Harper says. “You don’t know what the research will show until you get the data … but the haters don’t want any data coming out that doesn’t support what they want to say.”
Harper says this anti-trans fervor and HRT bans are making it more difficult to conduct studies in the first place.
And while the far-right argues that they are “protecting women’s sports” in their war on trans athletes, multiple athletes and experts told Uncloseted Media that this distracts from bigger issues in women’s sports, including sexualharassment by coaches and a lack of funding.
“If the real goal was to help women’s sports, they would try to increase funding [and] support for athletes,” says Harper, noting that women’s sports receive half as much money as men’s sports at the Division I collegiate level. “But that’s not what they’re doing, and it becomes pretty evident the real motivation behind these people.”
Since Trump’s reelection, Grace McKenzie has somewhat resigned herself to the likelihood of attacks on trans people getting worse. Despite this, she finds hope in building community with other trans athletes, such as the New York City-based trans basketball league Basketdolls.
“If that’s the legacy that [the anti-trans movement] wants to leave behind, good for them,” McKenzie says. “Our legacy is going to be one about hope, and collective solidarity, and mutual aid, and I would much rather be on that side of the fence.”
Meanwhile, Fry remains hopeful that conflicts can be resolved and that trans people may be able to find a place in sports over time.
“If we could all have more positive conversations and not create such a hateful environment around this issue, it would just benefit everyone.”
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The Department of Homeland Security will update visa policies to prevent transgender women from traveling to the U.S. to participate in elite women’s sporting events.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued guidance Monday intended to bar trans women athletes from obtaining “extraordinary ability” visas to compete in female sports, as was first reported by the conservative news website The Daily Wire. The guidance builds off of an executive order President Doanld Trump issued during the early weeks of his presidency that intended to bar trans women from competing in female sports.
The guidance doesn’t use the word transgender or refer to trans women, but rather refers to “male athletes” who seek to compete in women’s sports.
Matthew Tragesser, a spokesperson for USCIS, said in a statement that the agency is “closing the loophole for foreign male athletes whose only chance at winning elite sports is to change their gender identity and leverage their biological advantages against women.”
“It’s a matter of safety, fairness, respect, and truth that only female athletes receive a visa to come to the U.S. to participate in women’s sports,” Tragesser said in the statement. “The Trump Administration is standing up for the silent majority who’ve long been victims of leftist policies that defy common sense.”
The policy update applies to three visa categories for individuals who possess “extraordinary ability” in science, art, education, business or athletics. It also affects national interest waivers, which allow applicants to self-petition to waive the labor certification for a green card if they can show that their work serves the national interest.
The updated guidance clarifies that USCIS “considers the fact that a male athlete has been competing against women as a negative factor” in determining whether they are among the top in the sport.
The guidance adds that it is not in the national interest of the U.S. to waive the labor certification requirement for trans women athletes “whose proposed endeavor is to compete in women’s sports.”
USCIS did not respond to a request for comment regarding how many people could be affected by the new policy or whether there are recent examples of trans female athletes traveling to the U.S. under the affected visa categories.
Within the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the nonprofit group that regulates college athletics, about 25,000 international student athletes compete in NCAA sports out of the more than 500,000 total who compete each year, according to the association. While it’s unclear how many NCAA athletes are trans, the association’s president, Charlie Baker, told a Senate committee in December that he is aware of fewer than 10.
The USCIS policy update may have affected athletes who planned to travel to Los Angeles for the 2028 Summer Olympics; however, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee barred trans women from competing in female sports last month.
Only a handful of trans athletes have ever competed in the Olympics. Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first out trans athlete to compete in the Olympics in the Tokyo Games in 2021, though she did not medal. American skateboarder Alana Smith and Canadian soccer star Quinn also competed in the Tokyo Games, and Quinn became the first nonbinary and trans athlete to ever medal when their team won gold that year.
Female athletes aiming to compete in international women’s track and field events will be required to undergo a one-time genetic test to confirm biological sex, under new regulations from World Athletics set to take effect September 1, according to a press release.
The policy, announced ahead of the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, mandates testing for the SRY gene, which typically indicates the presence of a Y chromosome and is used as a marker of male biological sex. The test can be administered via blood sample or cheek swab and will be overseen by national federations under World Athletics’ supervision.
The update provides procedural clarity for competitions moving forward but deepens what has long been one of track and field’s most polarizing debates — the eligibility of transgender women and athletes with differences in sex development (DSD). Critics say the policy singles out and targets gender-diverse athletes, particularly trans women and intersex athletes, while imposing no such testing on cisgender men or trans men.
Alejandra Caraballo, of the Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic, noted in a BlueSky post that a previous attempt to test women athletes ruined their lives and led to the suicide of Pratima Gaonkar, an intersex swimmer who won a silver medal in the 4×400 relay in the Junior Asian Athletics Championships, among other tragedies and near-fatalities.
World Athletics currently bans transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in women’s categories, and imposes strict testosterone suppression requirements on DSD athletes. The new rule, recommended by a working group earlier this year, adds a pre-competition SRY gene screening as an eligibility prerequisite.
The issue of gender verification in sport has caused international controversy since Caster Semenya, a South African runner with DSD, rose to prominence after winning her first world title in the 800 meters in 2009. Semenya became the public face of the debate, especially after refusing to comply with World Athletics’ 2018 policy requiring athletes like her to reduce their natural testosterone levels to compete.Just three weeks ago, Semenya won a partial legal victory at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, which ruled that she had not received a fair hearing when the Swiss Supreme Court upheld the sport’s prior regulations. While the judgment did not overturn World Athletics’ DSD policy, it cast further doubt on the legal processes behind those rules.
