DENVER — The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee revised without fanfare its eligibility rules to comply with President Trump’s executive order on women’s sports, effectively barring male-born athletes from competing on women’s teams across the Olympic landscape.
In a Tuesday letter, the Colorado Springs-based committee told national sports governing bodies that it has amended its Athlete Safety Policy to include a section that references Mr. Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order.
“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations. The guidance we’ve received aligns with the Ted Stevens Act, reinforcing our mandated responsibility to promote athlete safety and competitive fairness,” said the letter addressed to the “Team USA Community.”
“Accordingly, we have updated our athlete safety policy to reflect this federal guidance,” the letter said. “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 letter signed by USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes essentially creates a uniform national policy on transgender-athlete eligibility in Olympic sports, removing the decision-making power from organizations such as USA Swimming and USA Track & Field.
The policy update represents the latest win for single-sex women’s sports advocates – and defeat for transgender-rights proponents – as international and national athletic associations increasingly move to reverse the influx of male-born athletes who identify as female in female sports.
Last week, USA Fencing announced that it will require athletes to participate based on sex versus gender identity effective Aug. 1, following an uproar over a male-born fencer competing against women.
Fencer Stephanie Turner was disqualified after she refused to compete against him at a March tournament.
Cheering the USOPC’s updated policy was the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, which thanked the Trump administration and the committee “for taking this important step to preserve fairness and integrity in women’s sports.”
“We also honor courageous athletes like Stephanie Turner, whose sacrifices and advocacy made this policy correction possible,” said the ICONS statement.
At the same time, the group urged the USOPC to implement sex-screening protocols to guarantee “equal, fair, and safe opportunities in athletic competition.”
“Next stop: the International Olympic Committee,” the council said. “Women across the world deserve the opportunity to compete on a level playing field and to become champions in their own right.”
The right-of-center group Independent Women said that the USOPC’s “quiet move marks a critical course correction ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games and sends a message to national governing bodies (NGB) and sport federations that women’s sports are for women, and women only.”
In 2021, the IOC deferred decisions on transgender eligibility to the international governing bodies of each Olympic sport. Some of those organizations, including World Athletics and World Swimming, responded by tightening their transgender-participation policies.
In March, World Athletics, which governs international track and field, announced that it would require elite athletes seeking to compete in the female category to undergo cheek swabs to determine biological sex.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association banned male-born athletes from women’s sports a day after Mr. Trump issued his Feb. 5 executive order, refocusing the national debate on Democrat-led states like California and Maine that have refused to bar biological boys from girls’ sports.
The U.S. Olympic Committee has announced it will comply with President Trump’s Executive Order banning men from competing in women’s sports.
It’s hard to applaud an organization for merely following the law, but nonetheless, this is a win.https://t.co/5gXR3CzZv4
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) July 22, 2025
Critics accused the committee of bowing to pressure from Mr. Trump, who has made fairness in women’s sports a key platform of his administration.
“Really shameful and embarrassing to see the USOPC bend the knee to Trump and bar trans women from competing in women’s Olympic sports,” said Aidan Reed, a runner with the Roots Running Project in Boulder, Colorado, on X. “Sport should be for everyone and a firewall against fascism.”
Cyd Zeigler, a writer for the LGBTQ publication Outsports, called the move “another massive blow to trans athletes. The idea that trans women might compete in the female category at the LA Olympics or Paralympics in 2028 is essentially zero at this point.”
Victoria Coley, vice president of communications for Independent Women, said that “President Trump drew a clear line in the sand, holding bad actors accountable and ending policies that sacrificed women for ideology.”
“Though details are light and much remains to be clarified, the USOPC’s quiet rollout doesn’t diminish the seismic impact,” she said in a statement. “By barring male athletes from female categories, the USOPC is affirming a basic truth: sex — not self-identification — defines competition.”
