The IOC’s New Policy Doesn’t Protect Women, It Puts Them at Risk

When the International Olympic Committee announced its decision to ban transgender women from women’s competition, it was positioned as a move to protect women’s sport.

But if you take a step back and look at what this policy actually does-not what it claims to do-it becomes clear that it doesn’t protect women at all, it puts them at risk. Not just transgender women--all women.

For decades, women’s sport has fought for greater access, more investment, and the simple recognition that girls and women deserve the same opportunities to compete, grow, and succeed. Progress hasn’t always been linear, but it has been real. More girls are playing and more women are competing at the highest levels; now, more pathways exist than ever before.

This policy interrupts that progress. It creates new barriers where we should be removing them and shrinks opportunity at a time when we should be expanding it. It also disproportionately impacts the very athletes the Olympic movement claims to support–especially those in smaller countries and less-resourced programs, where every roster spot matters.

We are not choosing between fairness and inclusion here. We are deciding whether opportunities for women in sport continue to grow-or begin to disappear. Part of what makes these opportunities disappear is great policing and surveillance of women’s bodies, more opportunities for misconduct, and more administrative hurdles for athletes, teams, and countries. 

But the most dangerous part of this policy isn’t who it excludes, it’s how it enforces that exclusion.

By opening the door to widespread “sex testing,” the IOC has reintroduced one of the most harmful practices in the history of women’s sport. Under this framework, any woman competing could be questioned, challenged, or tested. Not because of wrongdoing, but because of perception.

Because she looks too strong. Too fast. Too different. Too unlike what someone thinks a woman should be.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical outcome of a system that invites scrutiny without clear standards or protections. It creates a culture where suspicion replaces trust, and where success itself can become grounds for investigation.

And it doesn’t just affect transgender athletes. It affects women with natural hormonal differences, chromosomal variations, or women whose bodies simply don’t conform to narrow, outdated definitions of femininity.

In fewer words: it affects women. What this policy really introduces is a system of policing women’s bodies.

It creates incentives for competitors, coaches, and even spectators to question an athlete’s identity as a form of competitive advantage. It tells girls and women that their participation can be challenged at any time-not based on performance or rules of the game, but based on how they look.

It puts athletes in the position of having to prove who they are, often to administrators who have little guidance and even less accountability. In many cases, those decisions will be made by people far removed from the athlete’s lived experience, and without the safeguards necessary to protect their dignity.

That is not protection. That is exposure.

Equally troubling is the fact that this policy attempts to solve a problem that has never been clearly demonstrated. There is no consistent, evidence-based case showing that transgender women are dominating women’s Olympic sport. There is no data that justifies a sweeping, global ban. There is no meaningful engagement with the actual results of competition. Instead, we are seeing a theoretical concern drive real-world consequences.

And those consequences extend beyond transgender athletes. This policy ignores intersex athletes entirely (nearly 2% of the global population) and offers no clarity for nonbinary athletes assigned female at birth. It replaces nuance with a blanket rule, and expertise with assumption. In doing so, it undermines the very foundation of sport governance, which has historically been informed, sport-specific decision-making grounded in evidence.

It also introduces a level of confusion and risk that sport systems are not equipped to handle. By removing decision-making from sport administrators and replacing it with a broad, undefined policy, the IOC has shifted responsibility onto national federations, teams, and athletes themselves. There is no clear enforcement mechanism, no consistent process, and no meaningful protection for those who will inevitably be targeted. This means increased legal, administrative, and human risk.

At its core, this policy makes sport less safe for women.

It increases the likelihood of harassment.It normalizes invasive scrutiny. It creates barriers to participation.

And it does all of this under the banner of protection. If policy makers actually want more girls and women in sport, you don’t pass rules that make it less safe and harder to participate. That’s not just a talking point. It’s a reality that athletes will feel immediately–on the field, in the locker room, and in the spaces where they should feel most secure.

We should be clear about what’s happening here.

We are not solving a real problem, we are creating new ones.

We are not protecting women, we are putting them in a position to be questioned, tested, and challenged simply for showing up.

We are not strengthening sport, we are weakening it by making it smaller, less inclusive, and more hostile.

At You Can Play, we believe sport is strongest when it is open, inclusive, and grounded in respect. This decision moves us away from that vision. 

And the cost will not just be felt by transgender athletes. It will be felt by every girl and every woman who steps onto a field, a court, or a track and wonders-not how well she can compete, but whether she will be allowed to compete at all.

That is not the future of sport we should be building. And it’s not one we should accept.