Kirsty Coventry, president of the Worldwide Olympic Committee, speaks on the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics on Friday in Milan. MILAN — World sports activities leaders have reached consensus on a new set of eligibility standards for transgender athletes, with the new policy anticipated to be introduced inside the first half of this 12 months, the Worldwide Olympic Committee mentioned Saturday.
It will be the primary uniform policy adopted by the IOC and worldwide sports activities federations, making use of to main occasions in dozens of sports activities, together with the Video games and world championships. At the moment, federations have their very own guidelines which may fluctuate.
Particulars of the new policy are unclear however it’s anticipated to severely limit the participation of transgender athletes who compete in girls’s classes if they’ve undergone full male puberty earlier than any subsequent medical transition.
The IOC, beneath its first feminine president, Kirsty Coventry, took the lead in June, choosing a uniform method.
“Defending the feminine class is without doubt one of the key reforms she desires to usher in,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams informed a information convention on the Milan-Cortina Winter Video games on Saturday.
“I might say it’ll occur shortly, inside the subsequent few months.”
“It has been out to session section and we had the ‘pause and replicate’ (interval) on it,” Adams mentioned. “Usually talking there’s consensus inside the sporting motion. I feel you’ll have a new policy within the first half of this 12 months. Do not maintain me to it, however that’s roughly the timescale.”
In September, Coventry arrange the “Safety of the Feminine Class” working group, made up of specialists in addition to representatives of worldwide federations, to look into how finest to guard the feminine class in sports activities.
Earlier than Coventry’s choice, the IOC had balked at any common rule on transgender participation for the Video games, instructing worldwide federations in 2021 to provide you with their very own tips. Underneath present guidelines, nonetheless in drive, transgender athletes are eligible to participate within the Olympics as soon as cleared by their respective federations.
Solely a handful of brazenly transgender athletes have taken half within the Video games. New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard grew to become the primary brazenly transgender athlete to compete in a distinct gender class to that assigned at start when the weightlifter took half within the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
At the moment, for instance, World Aquatics permits transgender athletes who’ve transitioned earlier than the age of 12, to compete. World Rugby bans all transgender athletes from elite-level competitions.
President Donald Trump has banned transgender athletes from competing in class, school and professional occasions within the feminine class in the US, as Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Summer season Olympics.
Trump, who signed the “Maintaining Males Out of Ladies’s Sports” order in February, has mentioned he wouldn’t permit transgender athletes to compete on the LA Video games.
–Reuters, particular to Subject Degree Media
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