Transgender athletes will no longer be allowed to compete on U.S. women’s Olympic teams under a new policy announced Tuesday by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), aligning with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year.
In a statement obtained by POLITICO, USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland confirmed the policy shift applies across all national governing bodies for Olympic sports.
“Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women,” Hirshland said.
Until now, individual sporting organizations had discretion over their own policies regarding transgender participation. But Trump’s executive order, issued in February and titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” requires a nationwide standard—effectively overriding sport-by-sport discretion and placing the U.S. at odds with international bodies like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Athletics, which allow transgender athletes to compete under specific medical or eligibility criteria.
The updated USOPC Athlete Safety Policy states that it aims to “ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201.”
USA Fencing was among the first sports to comply, announcing Tuesday that it had revised its guidelines and would implement the changes starting August 1.
“This update, mandated by the USOPC, aligns our sport with current national standards while keeping community support at the forefront,” the organization said in a social media post.
The decision reflects the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to bar transgender women from female athletic categories—an issue that has become central to the Republican-led culture war.
Meanwhile, newly elected IOC President Kirsty Coventry signaled last month that the global body would revisit its own transgender inclusion policies. Coventry said there was “overwhelming support” from member countries to create a working group aimed at “protecting the female category” in elite competition.
