This week, the International Olympic Committee announced a new policy to ban transgender and intersex women from the women’s category and require sex verification testing for all athletes in the women’s category.
This decision doesn’t just impact transgender athletes. It impacts all women.
While this policy is being framed as a way to “protect women’s sports,” it does something else entirely: it expands surveillance of women’s bodies. And we know from history who will be targeted the most: women from the Global Majority, whose bodies have been policed and scrutinized through racism and bias in sport.
None of this is new.
Cisgender women will now be subjected to testing and scrutiny just to prove they belong. The IOC tested athletes for decades but abandoned sex testing in the late 1990s because it was deemed scientifically and ethically unjustifiable. It was called a human rights violation, which is why over 90 human rights organizations and the United Nations all spoke out against reviving this practice now.
And yet, here we are again.
This time, the difference is how political it all feels. The IOC decision-making process lacked transparency. Experts in gender, biology, and sport policy were left out. And the outcome aligns with political pressure more than with scientific evidence. That should concern us all.
Because policies like this do not stay at the elite level. Even when they claim not to apply to youth or recreational athletes, these policies shape the culture of sport.They influence local policies. And perhaps, more than anything, they send a message about who belongs in sport. And who doesn’t.
These policies don’t create fairness - they create fear, and send a clear message that your body is only acceptable if you fit within a narrow, regulated definition.
That is not the future women’s sports deserve.
March 31 is Transgender Day of Visibility, an annual celebration of trans people and a day that raises awareness about the discrimination faced by the trans community. This year, visibility feels complicated.
To be visible as a trans person right now is, in many ways, an act of resistance. It means showing up in a world that is increasingly willing to question your body, your place, and your right to participate.
As a transgender athlete, I’ve made it my life’s work to be visible and to help transgender and nonbinary folks know they have a place in sport and in the world. I want to “be who I needed when I was younger,” a motto I adopted long ago that has become the North Star for all of my decision-making.
Today, in this moment? There is a real tension between visibility and safety.
But I also know this: trans athletes, like all athletes, deserve to feel seen, valued, and protected in sport.
As policies that scrutinize athletes move forward, we need to ask better questions.
Why now?
Who is this really protecting?
Who is being left behind?
And who benefits from decisions made behind closed doors?
If the answer isn’t “all athletes,” then we are not protecting sport - we’re limiting it.