IOC Replaces Sport-by-Sport Gender Rules With One-Time SRY Gene Screening for LA28

The International Olympic Committee has replaced its previous decentralized framework with a uniform eligibility rule for women’s Olympic events, using a one-time genetic screening that will first apply at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

 

 

 

The International Olympic Committee approved its new Policy on the Protection of the Female Category on March 26, 2026, establishing one eligibility standard across Olympic sports beginning with Los Angeles 2028.

Under the policy, every athlete seeking eligibility for a female-category event at an IOC competition must undergo a one-time screening for the presence or absence of the SRY gene.

The SRY gene is a segment of DNA usually located on the Y chromosome and involved in initiating male sex development, making it the IOC’s chosen initial eligibility marker.

Testing can be performed using saliva, a cheek swab, or a blood sample, with the IOC describing those methods as comparatively unintrusive ways of determining the screening result.

Athletes who receive an SRY-negative result permanently satisfy the policy’s sex-based eligibility requirement for the female category, unless officials later have reason to believe the original result was erroneous.

For those athletes, the test is effectively once in a career. They are not expected to undergo repeated genetic screening before each Olympic Games or every international competition.

An SRY-positive result generally makes an athlete ineligible for the female category, including transgender women with XY chromosomes and androgen-sensitive athletes with certain differences of sex development.

However, describing the rule as excluding “everyone else” is slightly incomplete because the IOC created limited exceptions for athletes with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome and certain other rare conditions.

Those exceptions apply when an athlete has a qualifying sex-development condition in which the body does not benefit from the anabolic or performance-enhancing effects of testosterone identified by the IOC.

Athletes who are ineligible for the female category can still compete in classifications for which they qualify, including male categories, designated male positions in mixed events, or available open categories.

The change represents a significant departure from the IOC’s 2021 framework, which emphasized inclusion and allowed international federations substantial responsibility for creating sport-specific eligibility rules.

That earlier system did not impose one universal Olympic testosterone threshold. Instead, different sports developed different requirements, with some using testosterone limits while others adopted restrictions based on male puberty.

The distinction matters because claims that the “old Olympic rule simply measured testosterone” oversimplify the previous system. Testosterone-based eligibility standards existed, but their application differed substantially between international federations.

World Athletics moved toward genetic screening before the IOC, introducing a once-in-a-lifetime SRY test in 2025 for athletes seeking to compete in its elite female category.

World Athletics initially applied the requirement to the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo and expanded implementation during 2026 across additional major competitions, including Diamond League and World Athletics Series events.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry said the Olympic policy was developed through medical review and consultation, arguing that sex-based rules were necessary to protect fairness, safety, and competitive integrity.

The IOC says athletes who experience male sex development can retain physical performance advantages in areas including strength, speed and explosive power, forming the scientific rationale behind its new eligibility approach.

Critics challenge that reasoning and argue that relying heavily on a single genetic marker can oversimplify variations in human sex development while creating privacy, ethical and medical concerns for athletes.

The policy applies specifically to Olympic Games and other IOC events and is not retroactive. It does not automatically impose the same genetic-testing requirements on grassroots or recreational sports.

The key change is therefore broader than transgender eligibility alone: starting at LA28, every athlete entering an Olympic female category must establish eligibility through the IOC’s standardized SRY-based screening process.