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Jonny Reid

Date posted: 7 Apr 2026

In a landmark decision the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that Olympic women’s sport will be limited to biological females.

It follows nearly 20 years of debate since the rise of athletes with DSD (differences in sexual development) winning World and Olympic medals. There will now be a one-off sex test, which will prevent any athletes with a Y chromosome, including transgender women and DSD athletes, except in extremely rare cases where they do not benefit from the performance-enhancing effects of testosterone, from competing in women’s categories. This slightly wordy description shows us some of the complexities in this case that we sometimes miss.