A ban on transgender women competitors is strongly expected to be in place for the 2028 Olympics – but it remains unclear if there will be barriers against athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD) after the boxing furore at Paris 2024.
Under the existing rules, each sport is empowered to decide if transgender women can compete if their testosterone levels fall below a designated threshold.
But the International Olympic Committee, under new president Kirsty Coventry, is in discussions about a dramatic policy shift that would impose a blanket ban across all sports for the Los Angeles Games.
Such a move would prevent the kind of scenario that saw Laurel Hubbard contest the weightlifting at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Hubbard transitioned in 2012.
While Olympic sources have confirmed that such a measure is very much the ‘direction of travel’, it is highly unlikely to come into force before the Winter Olympics in Italy next February.
One report suggested that a rule change could be announced in February, but insiders estimated it might take between six months and a year for it to be approved and cleared.
The move would be seen as a box ticked by Coventry, who campaigned to protect the female category on her way to winning the presidential election earlier this year.
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