A proposed new agreement among sports leaders around the world on gender policy would be the first unified standard.
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Published February 7, 2026
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on Saturday that world sports leaders have reached agreement on new eligibility criteria for transgender athletes, with the new policy expected to be announced during the first half of this year.
This is the first unified policy adopted by the IOC and international sports federations, and applies to major events in dozens of sports, including conventions and world championships. Currently, each federation has its own rules, which may differ.
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Details of the new policy are unclear, but it is expected that the participation of transgender athletes competing in the women’s category will be severely restricted if they have undergone fully male puberty prior to their subsequent medical transition.
The IOC took control in June under its first female president, Kirsty Coventry, and opted for a unified approach.
“Protecting the women’s category is one of the key reforms she wants to introduce,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said at a press conference at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games on Saturday.
“I think it will happen in the near future, within the next few months.
“We have entered a consultation phase and have instituted a ‘pause and reflect’ (period),” Adams said. “Generally speaking, there is a consensus within the sports movement. I think a new policy will be announced in the first half of this year. Don’t get hung up on it, but that’s the approximate timetable.”
In September, Coventry set up a “Protecting the Female Category” working group, made up of experts and representatives from international federations, to consider how best to protect the female category in sport.
Before the Coventry decision, the IOC had long balked at universal rules for transgender Olympic participation, and had told international federations to come up with their own guidelines for 2021. Under the current rules, which are still in place, transgender athletes are eligible to participate in the Olympics with permission from their respective federations.
Only a handful of openly transgender athletes have participated in the Olympics. New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender athlete to compete in a gender category different from the one assigned at birth when she competed as a weightlifter at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
For example, World Aquatics now allows transgender athletes who transitioned before the age of 12 to compete. World Rugby bans all transgender players from elite-level competition.
As Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, US President Donald Trump has banned transgender athletes from competing in US women’s school, collegiate and professional competitions.
President Trump, who signed an order in February to ban men from women’s sports, said he would not allow transgender athletes to compete in the Los Angeles Games.
