FILE - A detail view of a United States Olympic Committee (USOC) logo outside Devon Park on June 7, 2025, in Oklahoma City, OK (Photo by Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively banned transgender women from competing in women’s sports.
The committee told the federations overseeing swimming, athletics and other sports it has an "obligation to comply" with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump.
The change, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year.
New policy
Dig deeper:
The USOPC's transgender eligibility policy page now includes a note that reads, "As of July 21, 2025, please refer to the USOPC athlete safety policy."
That policy does not lay out any clear guidelines regarding trans inclusion in women's sports. However, it does include one paragraph that directly cites Trump's "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order.
USA Fencing was one of the first US Olympic organizations to publicly announce it has updated its gender eligibility policy after months of criticism for allowing biological males to compete in the women's category.
The organization appeared to update its policy last week to include the following requirements for competing in domestic women's competitions: "Athletes who are of the female sex, provided all other entry criteria have been met."
The new policy will go into effect beginning next month.
The USOPC oversees around 50 national governing bodies, most of which play a role in everything from the grassroots to elite levels of their sports. That raises the possibility that rules might need to be changed at local sports clubs to retain their memberships in the NGBs.
The nationwide battle over transgender girls on girls’ and women’s sports teams has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans portray the issue as a fight for athletic fairness. More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some policies have been blocked in court after critics challenged the policies as discriminatory, cruel and unnecessarily target a tiny niche of athletes.
The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes to limit competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth. That change came a day after Trump signed the executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from The Associated Press and FOX News.