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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the news that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had updated its policies to ensure only biological females compete in women’s sports and would use genetic testing for enforcement purposes.
Leavitt attributed the change to Trump’s “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order.
“You can’t change your gender. It was President Trump’s executive order protecting women’s sports that made this possible!” » said Leavitt.
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Trump signed the order in February last year, shortly after taking office. The order empowers the Secretary of State to use measures to get the IOC to change its policy to protect the women’s category.
“The Secretary of State shall use all appropriate and available measures to ensure that the International Olympic Committee modifies the standards governing Olympic sporting events to promote fairness, safety, and the best interests of female athletes by ensuring that eligibility for participation in women’s sporting events is determined based on sex and not gender identity or testosterone reduction,” the order states.
Last July, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) changed its athlete safety policy to enforce Trump’s mandate, directly citing the executive order.
Then, when Trump announced the creation of an Olympic task force in August, Trump said “testing” would be used to strengthen protections for women’s competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“There will be a very strong form of testing,” Trump said when asked about the use of genetic testing at LA28.
In October, at the USOPC Winter Olympics Media Summit, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jonathan Finnoff said that SRY genetic testing used by World Athletics and World Boxing is “not common” in the United States, but suggested that the USOPC is currently exploring the possibility of using sex testing options for its own teams and that he expects other world governing bodies to “follow suit.”
“It’s not necessarily very common to take this specific test in the United States and so our goal was to help identify laboratories and options for athletes to take this test, and based on that experience, and knowing that other international federations would likely follow suit,” Finnoff said.
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Now the IOC says it will use the SRY genetic test for any competitor in the women’s category in any Olympic event.
“Eligibility for any women’s event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined based on a one-time SRY gene screening,” the new policy states.
The new policy sent shockwaves through America’s current conflict over women’s sports.
The United States Supreme Court is currently considering two cases related to policies regarding trans athletes.
The attorneys general charged with protecting women’s sports in those cases, John McCuskey of West Virginia and Raul Labrador of Idaho, reacted Thursday to news of the policy change.
McCuskey told PK Press Club Digital he was “very pleased with the IOC’s decision to follow widespread common sense.”
McCuskey also credited Trump for his influence in bringing about change.
“President Trump showed up. I don’t believe the IOC would be doing this if President Trump hadn’t taken a bold leadership position on this issue,” he said.
While McCuskey awaits a decision from the SCOTUS on his state’s case, he believes the IOC’s decision reflects the belief that society in general is aligned with his side. McCuskey’s team presented its closing arguments to the justices in January.
“I think this is probably further evidence that, even as we made our case, the underlying societal understanding of this issue is very different than what the left believed,” McCuskey said.
Labrador said he looks forward to the decisions in his case.
“The IOC has just announced that women’s Olympic sports will be limited to biological females starting in 2028. This is a major step forward for fairness and safety in women’s athletics. I am proud that my office led the defense of Idaho’s law by doing the same before the United States Supreme Court in January. We look forward to the Court’s decision in our case this summer,” Labrador said.
Many prominent activists who have led the charge to protect women’s sports, including Riley Gaines and Jennifer Sey, have insisted that genetic testing would be necessary to force any policy changes.
Some liberals are in turmoil
Civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo voiced her objection to the IOC’s BlueSky policy, criticizing the new genetic testing requirements.
“This testing regime is not consistent with basic human rights principles. And I’m not even talking about trans athletes. Only women will be subjected to this. They haven’t clarified who will pay for these tests which cost thousands of dollars. It’s a matter of pass or fail for athletes from poor countries,” Caraballo wrote.
Nathan Kalman-Lamb, a sociology professor at the University of New Brunswick, denounced the new policy on BlueSky.
Trans rights activists take part in a protest against the ban on hormone blockers on April 20, 2024 in London. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
“The (obnoxious) International Olympic Committee just (fucking) formally banned trans participation in sport,” Kalman-Lamb wrote.
“The IOC has just officially unleashed waves of additional damage in the name of sporting “fairness”. Sport can never justify the dehumanization that this decision demands.”
Transgender actress Stacy Cay spoke out on X.
“There were no transgender women at the Olympics. But there are a lot of intersex women who are about to find out that according to the IOC, they are not women. It’s going to be fun,” Cay wrote.
