U.S. Olympic and Paralympic officials bar transgender women from Olympic women's sports

[The Grand Illuminist]

Source: NPR

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively barred transgender women from competing in women's sports, telling the federations overseeing swimming, athletics and other sports it has an "obligation to comply" with an executive order issued by President Trump.

The change, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC's website and confirmed in a letter sent to national governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/22/g-s1-78817/usopc-olympic-paralympic-transgender-women-sports-ban

[TomSlick]

2. Transgender women participating in sports is a complicated issue.

I don't have answers, only questions.

If a trans-woman has undergone male puberty, she may have an unfair competitive advantage. However, sports officials are unqualified to make the necessary determination. The easy option is to simply bar trans-women but like most easy options, it is overbroad and unfair. An overbroad option is necessarily discriminatory but a more tailored approach is not readily apparent. Allowing all trans-woman to participate in competitive sports irrespective of an unfair advantage would be harmful to women's sports.

The "least bad" solution will never be widely acceptable.

[Shrek]

14. Caitlyn Jenner won the men's decathlon at the 1976 Olympics

If she had competed in the women's pentathlon instead, she would have crushed the competition in the four events where the decathlon and pentathlon intersect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1976_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_pentathlon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1976_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_decathlon

[msongs]

3. only applies to the USA team, cannot stop other nations. what, is there a flood of transgender ppl joing olympic teams?

[JI7]

4. How about Transgender men ?

They can still play on men's sports ?

[xocetaceans]

5. Does that even ever happen? I've never heard of a transgender man achieving success in a men's sporting event. At...

...least, if it has happened, maybe it has not been covered extensively, but I've always wondered about the symmetry in competitions. Specifically, if transgender women can win in women's sports, should it not also be seen that transgender men can win in men's sports, (all things being taken to be equal)?

[Oeditpus Rex]

7. Winning isn't the point of thls

Competing is. They just want the opportunity, like anyone else.

[pcdb]

9. Why aren't there any transgender men competing in men's sports?

[Oeditpus Rex]

10. Rhetorical question?

You'd have to ask a group of transmen athletes.

[Jose Garcia]

15. What makes you think that there aren't any?

[xocetaceans]

11. Competition in a sport is about winning. I think you might mean participating and not competing, but even then, sports

are not designed with rules to foster "NPCs". The rules all have victory conditions defined within them. There aren't people who are just hanging out on a basketball court, on a football pitch, or on any playing field in any sport. The rules of the sport don't designate neutral players who are essentially tourists. So, I don't really think that you and I have at all the same idea of what sports are. Maybe you mean some sort of low-intensity sort of P.E. class pick-up games, I don't know. However, from the junior high level and up through the pros, sports and competition are about winning by pushing yourself and defeating your opponents by preparation and with fair play.

All that being said, though, you essentially dodged my question about the success of trans men in men's sports. Has that actually happened? If it has, then it should really should be brought up, because that would be a positive argument that shows that things can be made to be fair from either side at least in principle.

[Oeditpus Rex]

12. No, competition in anything is about

having the opportunity to win. Trying to win. Doing one's best.

You can't win if you aren't allowed to compete. These people aren't. That's the whole point.

[xocetaceans]

16. As I said, you and I don't have apparently any sort of similar definition of sports or of competition.

Sports and competition are (at least to me and I believe generally) about what I stated before, but especially about fair play. The principal objection that a lot of people have is that what you are suggesting seems to violate the idea of fair play in at least a few cases. That is the general default view, I think. That is why I cannot see why you still dodge my earlier question. I am asking it as a way to show that fairness can exist in principle. Why you refuse to address that is beyond me, but what do I know?

The way you are currently arguing your point will never convince people who are using different definitions from those which you are using. Basically, you are ignoring their positions and insisting that you are correct. Has sheer insistence ever convinced anyone to alter their views? If at all, very slowly and very seldomly. I saw your "If I could only live long enough to see things change" type of post. If you really want change in the near term, change how you are arguing your point. But again what do I know? Either way, good luck.

[Oeditpus Rex]

18. If by 'earlier question'

you mean "Why aren't there any transgender men competing in men's sports?" I did answer it, but I'll put that answer another way in hopes it'll help: How the hell would I know?

That's the reason I asked if it were a rhetorical question. It seemed completely obvious that only a transman could answer such a question, particularly one who's a athlete (and preferably a group or panel of them to get more input to the answer).

[xocetaceans]

19. Unfortunately, that was a question that someone else posted. I asked if there had been any trans men who had had...

success (i.e., by achieving victory) in men's athletic competitions. If that had occurred, I have not heard of it. I was merely wondering if it has occurred. If you don't know whether such an event has ever occurred, that is a perfectly legitimate response. I also do not know. I just have not heard of it.

As to the motivation behind one's participation in such competitions, I agree that only the athletes would know. So, I would not have asked that and indeed did not ask that.

[Shrek]

13. The article touches on this a bit

USA Fencing changed its policy effective Aug. 1 to allow only "athletes who are of the female sex" in women's competition and opening men's events to "all athletes not eligible for the women's category, including transgender women, transgender men, non-binary and intersex athletes and cisgender male athletes."

[Seeking Serenity]

17. There's no such thing as "men's" sports

Anyone is permitted to try out to play on "men's" teams and generally compete in so-called men's sports as long as they have the ability and can perform at that level.

Name me a sport association or league that specifically bars women based on sex.

[maxsolomon]

6. What about Intersex?

Imane Khelif wasn't Trans...

[Oeditpus Rex]

8. I wish I could be alive

when we evolve to the point of looking back on LGBTQ+ issues and thinking, "What was all the fuss about?" But that's gonna take many more years than I've got left.

Sigh...