The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee has updated its policy to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports.
The committee has made changes to the updated “Athlete Safety Policy,” which does not mention the term “transgender” on any of pages 27. However, the document dated June 18th was quietly posted on the USOPC website on Monday, and includes language that the committee will comply with Trump’s orders.
“USOPC will continue to work with a variety of stakeholders with oversight responsibility, such as the IOC, IPC, NGBS, and others, to ensure that women ensure a fair and safe competitive environment consistent with Executive Order 14201 and the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act,” the document states.
Executive Order 14201 is known as Trump’s “No Man in Women’s Sports Executive Order.”
US Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Heeschland and President Jean Sykes confirmed the update in a letter to the Team USA community obtained by NBC News.
“As a recognized federal government, we have an obligation to follow the expectations of the federal government,” they said. “The guidance we received is consistent with the Ted Stevens Act and strengthens our mandated responsibility to promote athlete safety and competitive equity.”
The updated policy “emphasizes the importance of ensuring a fair and safe competitive environment for women,” added all national governing bodies needed to update the policy to match the updated guidelines.
It is unclear whether Olympians will be banned from competing for the 2028 Olympics under the updated policy.
Non-binary American medium-distance runner Nikki Hiltz was assigned a woman at birth and would likely not be affected by the arbitration. Hiltz finished seventh in the women’s 1,500 metre race at the 2024 Paris Games.
No athlete has won an Olympic medal while competing as an openly transgender woman.
Caitling Jenner came out as a transgender man decades after winning the gold medal in ten men at the 1976 Montreal tournament. The first openly transgender woman to compete in the Olympics was Laurel Hubbard, a New Zealand weightlifter who failed to score the podium at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
The participation of trans athletes in sports has become a divisive issue in recent years as critics have focused primarily on trans girls and women. Critics argue that male-born competitors have more physical advantages than female-born people.
However, trans athletes make up only a small part of the overall competitive environment.
NCAA president Charlie Baker testified before a Senate committee in January that he knew less than 10 transgender university athletes out of the 544,000 currently competing.
Last year, more than 400 athletes signed a letter to the NCAA asking them not to ban trans athletes from the competition, urging them to be on the “right side of history.”
“As athletes, we know first hand that sports have the power to change lives,” the letter said. “To enable trans athletes within the NCAA to participate in the sport they love as someone who truly exists with their teammates fill the true spirit of Olympism that we all attribute.”
The letter expressed concern that anti-trans laws are “predominantly driven by propaganda and deception,” and expressed its failure to address the actual threats to women’s sport. It relates to a study from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports, which found that “trans women who received testosterone suppression do not have any clear biological advantages over CIS women in elite sports.”
There are already rules regarding testosterone levels in athletes. Transgender runner Cece Telfer was considered unqualified to take part in the 400-meter hurdle in Paris games last year because he failed to meet the standards for hormone levels.
The US has made many policy changes since Trump’s inauguration, and has targeted transgender people this year, including a ban on transgender girls and women in sports.
The Trump administration has changed its policy of issuing passports to require gender markers to match the gender assigned to people at birth. Federal prisons have been ordered to move trans women to male facilities despite expressing their supporters’ concerns about safety in such circumstances.
Transgender people are also banned from military service, forcing service members to years of experience and professional training to quit their jobs.
Mark Scaglione contributed.
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