The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has taken a stance on the participation of transgender athletes in sports competitions.
Recent updates suggest the committee has effectively excluded transgender women from competing in women’s sports. This decision is reflected in a letter stating their obligation to ‘comply with federal expectations’.
The updated policy appeared quietly on the committee’s website. Additionally, USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes stated in a letter: “As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations.
“Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women. All National Governing Bodies are required to update their applicable policies in alignment.”
The directive requests other governing bodies to ‘update’ their policies to mirror this change.
In response, the National Women’s Law Center released a statement. President and CEO Fatima Goss Graves remarked: “The world is watching with alarm at the loss of freedom and opportunity in our country, especially as the United States is expected to host future Olympic events. The Committee will learn – as so many other institutions have – that there is no benefit in appeasing the endless, shifting, and petulant demands coming out of the White House.”
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She further stated: “By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes. The vagueness of the Committee’s policy will leave athletes unprotected from humiliating sex-testing practices. Athletes will now be subject to intrusive questioning and demands for traumatizing physical exams as they prove they are women enough to play.
“The USOPC should devote its energy to the real and serious disparities harming women athletes: fewer chances to participate across all sports compared to boys and men; worse facilities, coaching, and equipment placing girls and women at greater risk of injury; and endemic sex harassment and assault perpetrated against women athletes.”
Shortly after Donald Trump assumed his second term as president in January, he signed an executive order designating male and female as the only recognized sexes.
The order states: “Invalidating the true and biological category of ‘woman’ improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.”
Trump has previously asserted that ‘the war on women’s sports is over,’ emphasizing: “My administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes.”
Since Trump’s return to office, over 20 states have enacted laws restricting transgender women from participating in certain sports.
If you’ve been impacted by these matters and seek confidential support, you can reach out to the LGBT national hotline at 888-843-4564, available Monday to Friday from 4pm to 12am ET and on Saturdays from 12pm to 5pm ET.