Gender & the Olympics: a short history
Transgender athletes have been permitted to compete in the Olympic meet-up since early in the new century, with Laurel Hubbard being the first openly transgender individual to compete, as she did in the 2021 games (held a year later than the usually scheduled four-year stretch because of COVID). Before this, in May 2019, CeCé Telfer won the 400m hurdles at the Division II championships to become the first out trans woman to win an NCAA title, though three years later she was ruled ineligible for Beijing trials, and did not qualify for Paris in 2024.
In 2003, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) enforced strict guidelines for a transgender individual to compete, including that the athlete in question had to have undergone and completed some specific surgical anatomical changes.
This ruling was dropped, with some other of the IOC’s gender rulings, a dozen years later with the first official transgender policy updates from the IOC coming from a famous suit.
A transgender Canadian cyclist named Kristen Worley, sued the IOC in 2015, arguing that the IOC’s reassignment surgery violated her rights and was unnecessary for her to compete. Worley would win her case until 2017, but the IOC removed their sex reassignment surgery requirement under the implementation of a new policy in 2015.
So, where are we now?
Just before the Paris Games, the IOC revised (yet again) their policies for transgender athletes. Three years ago, the committee released their ‘Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations' report. What the IOC did as leave the decision of transgender participation up to each sport’s international governing body. International Federations of each sport.
