More than 80 human rights and sports advocacy groups have urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to scrap purported intentions of implementing universal genetic sex testing for female athletes and enforcing a blanket prohibition on transgender and intersex competitors. In a collective statement released on Tuesday by the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA), ILGA World, Humans of Sport, and numerous other organizations cautioned that the recommended measures by the IOC’s Protection of the Female Category Working Group could regress gender equality in sports.
The joint statement highlighted that sources have indicated the working group’s advice to mandate genetic sex verification for all female athletes and exclude transgender and intersex athletes from women’s competitions. However, the IOC has not yet publicly verified these recommendations. Andrea Florence, the executive director of SRA, expressed concerns that sex testing and a blanket ban policy would significantly undermine women’s rights and safety, labeling it as a “catastrophic erosion.”
Furthermore, the statement emphasized that gender policing and exclusion have adverse effects on all women and girls, contradicting the dignity and fairness that the IOC purports to promote. The IOC, set to disclose the working group’s conclusions in the first half of 2026, had discontinued universal sex testing following the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Various international bodies, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women, and the World Medical Association, have criticized sex testing and associated interventions as discriminatory and detrimental, infringing on women’s and girls’ privacy rights. Payoshni Mitra, the executive director of Humans of Sport, highlighted that such practices expose young athletes to safeguarding risks.
Advocates argued that the exclusion of transgender and intersex athletes overlooks the challenges these individuals encounter, such as harassment, limited sport access, and structural disadvantages. ILGA World’s executive director, Julia Ehrt, emphasized that sports should foster a sense of belonging for all participants.
The groups pointed out that the purported recommendations contradict the IOC’s own 2021 Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination. Reuters has reached out to the IOC for a response. World Athletics is one of the sporting organizations that has already implemented gender testing, including the introduction of an SRY gene test for all female athletes before last year’s world championships in Tokyo.