ANTRA (National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals) says that the measure approved for Los Angeles 2028 resumes “exclusionary strategies”
The IOC (International Olympic Committee) announced on Thursday (26 March 2026) that from the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, only biological women will be able to participate in the female category of several official championships. The new eligibility policy of the body’s executive board.
The decision was criticized by the National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals (ANTRA), which expressed concern about the exclusion of transgender athletes from the Olympics. The association highlighted that “US President Donald Trump has adopted a series of restrictive and persecutory measures against trans people, with a focus on trans women, and has pressured countries to do the same”. Read the .
The executive board published a 10-page document setting out the new criteria. “For all disciplines of the IOC Sports Program of an Event, including individual and team sports, eligibility for any female category is limited to biological females”stated the IOC, in the document. “Eligibility for the female category must be determined in the first instance by screening for the SRY gene“. Eis a (PDF-420kb).
The decision aligns with the Donald Trump, on women’s sports. Since the 2024 Paris Olympics, many international sports organizations are restricting or banning trans women from elite women’s competitions.
According to the the policy “protects justice, safety and integrity in the women’s category”. The body declared that the measure “is not retroactive and does not apply to grassroots or recreational sports programs”.
Criticisms of the scientific basis
Antra questions the way in which the debate on the participation of trans people in sport has been conducted. “This is not a new topic, but the reissue of old exclusion strategies disguised as scientific neutrality. Throughout history, biology has been mobilized as a political instrument to restrict rights”, states to note.
The entity states, in a statement, that it was based on these arguments that cisgender women were banned from participating in sporting competitions for decades, under allegations of fragility or inadequacy, while black people were also the target of eugenicist and racist theories.
The association states that studies indicate the complexity of sports performance and the limits of explanations based solely on biological factors, with no consensus on the supposed advantages of trans women.
