olympic games

Transgender women athletes will be excluded from the Olympics beginning with the 2028 Los Angeles Games after the International Olympic Committee implemented a new eligibility policy on Thursday.

Eligibility for women’s competition will be determined by a one-time, mandatory genetics test, according to the IOC. The test requires screening through saliva, a cheek swab or a blood sample.

No woman who transitioned from being born male competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, and it is unclear if any transgender women currently compete at an Olympic level. The new policy, however, aligns with President Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s or girls’ sporting events in the United States.

The eligibility policy approved by the IOC is not retroactive and does not apply to recreational sports programs.

The IOC said in a statement that it “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females.”

Until now, individual sports federations determined whether transgender women were allowed to compete in women’s categories, with the IOC providing only recommendations. Sports that placed restrictions on transgender athletes included track and field, boxing, swimming and rugby.

The IOC Executive Board approved the new policy after 18 months of study. It mirrors the guidelines approved by the World Athletics Council in June, determining eligibility for the female category through screening for the absence or presence of the SRY gene.

The IOC policy leans on scientific research that considers the presence of the SRY gene fixed for life and represents evidence that an athlete has experienced male sex development. Athletes who screen negative for the SRY gene will be eligible to compete in women’s sports.

SRY (which stands for sex-determining region Y gene) is found on the Y chromosome. In the cell, it binds to other DNA, leading to testis formation, according to the National Library of Medicine. Even men who lack Y chromosomes still have a copy of the SRY region on one of their X chromosomes, which accounts for their maleness.

Jane Thornton, the IOC medical and scientific director, last year presented to the executive board findings that transgender athletes born with male sexual markers retained physical advantages, even those that had received treatment to reduce testosterone.

Kirsty Coventry, a former gold-medal Olympics swimmer from Zimbabwe, was elected a year ago as the first woman president of the IOC. She campaigned on the importance of protecting the women’s category.

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” Coventry said Thursday in a statement. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

LA28 revealed the schedule Monday for an extended Olympic soccer tournament that will begin four days before the opening ceremony.

The soccer competition begins July 10 with four men’s group stage games across New York, Columbus, Nashville and St. Louis. The women’s tournament begins July 11 with games in all six of the preliminary round sites, including San José and San Diego.

The soccer competition, which will feature 12 women’s teams and eight men’s teams for the first time, has the longest competition window of any sport in Olympic history because the International Olympic Committee Executive Board wanted to give each team two extra rest days throughout the tournament.

Each team will have two days of rest between group stage games and three days between the final group game and the quaterfinal rounds. The men will begin their knockout round games on July 20 while the women start quarterfinal play on July 21, including one women’s quarterfinal match at the Rose Bowl.

The iconic stadium in Pasadena will host only five matches for the Olympics, including a men’s and women’s semifinal July 24 and the men’s gold medal match on July 28 and the women’s on July 29.

San Diego’s SnapDragon Stadium will have the most matches of any site with 11. In addition to three days of women’s group stage games, the home of San Diego State football, San Diego FC and San Diego Wave FC will host a women’s quarterfinal July 21, men’s and women’s semifinals July 24 and both bronze medal matches.

With the coast-to-coast soccer tournament shaping up, LA28 announced additional ticket opportunities for the competition, allowing fans interested in attending soccer matches to buy up to 12 soccer tickets in addition to the current 12-ticket maximum for all other Olympic events. The 12-ticket maximum for Olympic events includes the opening and closing ceremonies on July 14 and 30, respectively, which each have a four-ticket limit.

Ticket registration for the first ticket drop ends Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. PDT with the first tickets going on sale to locals in Southern California and Oklahoma beginning April 2. The first general ticket drop begins April 9. Fans who are randomly selected to participate in the first ticket drop will be notified via email between March 31 and April 7 with information and their assigned timeslot to purchase tickets.

More than 5 million fans have already registered for Olympic tickets, LA28 said, with Paralympic tickets going on sale in 2027. The organizing committee expects 14 million tickets to be available for the Games, which could eclipse the total ticket sales record set by Paris in 2024.