Transgender people in sports


The participation of transgender people in competitive sports, a traditionally sex-segregated institution, has become a subject of debate and discussion, particularly in relation to the inclusion of transgender women and girls in women's sports.
Opponents of including transgender athletes in competitive sports argue that physiological differences create unfair advantages and safety concerns, while proponents highlight the effects of hormone therapy and the importance of inclusion. These debates have led to scrutiny of sex verification and eligibility rules, which some view as necessary for fairness and others as discriminatory. With no unified international policy, individual sports organizations set their own standards, and some have restricted transgender women's participation in women's categories.
Historically, transgender athletes were often excluded or required to compete based on sex assigned at birth. As gender-affirming treatments became more common, sports bodies introduced criteria like hormone requirements and sex verification. The International Olympic Committee’s decision to allow transgender athletes under certain conditions marked a turning point, but policies still vary widely across sports and countries, fueling ongoing debates among athletes, organizations, and advocacy groups.

History of transgender people in sports

Transgender participation in sports has evolved alongside broader social and medical developments since the mid-twentieth century. Early policies often excluded transgender athletes or required them to compete according to their sex assigned at birth, reflecting the binary gender enforcement that historically defined sports participation. As gender-affirming medical treatments became more available, sports organizations introduced eligibility criteria such as hormone requirements and sex verification procedures to regulate participation in gendered categories.
Historically, sport has been seen as a male domain. The masculine perception of sport was first moderated with the rise of women's sports and further challenged with the gradual acceptance of gay sportsmen. A third departure from tradition occurred with the emergence of trans athletes, many of whom challenge the culturally accepted binary gender norms of male and female.

Notable figures

Renée Richards

One of the earliest high-profile transgender athletes was tennis player Renée Richards. Richards was a promising tennis player in the men's circuit who then underwent gender reassignment therapy in 1975 and started playing in women's tournaments a year later. Her discovery resulted in a media frenzy which sparked protests. After she accepted an invitation to a warm-up tournament for the US Open, the Women's Tennis Association and the United States Tennis Association withdrew their support and 25 of the 32 women pulled out of the tournament.
As a result, the United States Tennis Association and Women's Tennis Association introduced the Barr body test, which identifies a person's sex chromosomes. Richards refused to take the test and was banned from the U.S. Open.
She filed a lawsuit in 1977, claiming that her civil rights were violated and that the policy was unfair. The New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor, saying that the Barr body test as the sole determinant of sex was "grossly unfair" and ruled Richards legally female.
She competed in the 1977 US Open at the age of 43. She reached the doubles final and subsequently retired four years later. At the time, the ruling in Richards's case did not lead to major changes for transgender athletes outside of tennis.

Lia Thomas

Since 2021, media has widely covered University of Pennsylvania student Lia Thomas, who swam for the men's team in 2018–2019, and for the women's team in 2021. The Washington Post wrote that Thomas was "shattering records". In December 2021, USA Swimming official Cynthia Millen resigned in protest, because of her belief that Thomas has an unfair advantage over her competitors. In February 2022, CNN called Thomas "the face of the debate on transgender women in sports". In March 2022, she became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship in any sport after winning the women's 500-yard freestyle event.
Thomas lost muscle mass and strength through testosterone suppression and hormone replacement therapy. Her time for the 500 freestyle is over 15 seconds slower than her personal bests before medically transitioning. Thomas's winning time of 4:33.24 was 9.18 seconds short of Katie Ledecky's NCAA record of 4:24.06. In other races, Thomas has been beaten by multiple cisgender women as well as by Iszac Henig, a transgender man not on hormones. According to Swimming World, by the conclusion of Thomas's swimming career at UPenn in 2022, her rank had moved from 65th on the men's team to 1st on the women's team in the 500-yard freestyle, and 554th on the men's team to 5th on the women's team in the 200-yard freestyle.
In July 2025, after the Trump administration had previously cut the University of Pennsylvania's federal funding in March 2025, UPenn agreed to apologize to female athletes "disadvantaged" by Thomas' participation on the women's swimming teams and update University records based on the Administration's changed interpretation of Title IX, while still crediting Thomas with setting those records in the 2021–2022 season in accordance with the eligibility guidelines at the time.

Others

In 1996, the Iron Ladies, a men's volleyball team made up of gay men and transgender women from Thailand, won the national championship. The Iron Ladies were not allowed to join Thailand's national volleyball team because of the way they dressed.
The first out transgender person to make a US national team was Chris Mosier, who in 2016 qualified for Team USA in duathlon. Mosier is considered the catalyst for the change in the IOC policy on transgender athletes in 2015, when he challenged the policy after initially being banned from the world championship race. Mosier also became the first known transgender athlete to compete in the Olympic Trials in the gender with which they identify, and the first trans man to make a men's Olympic Trials, when he competed in January 2020 in the US Olympic Team Trials in the 50k Racewalking event.
In 2017, Mack Beggs, a teenager from Texas, was required to wrestle against girls throughout the season of his transition from female to male up through the state championship, despite wanting to wrestle against boys. This was due to state sport regulations requiring athletes to compete alongside athletes of their assigned sex. Some opponents say the testosterone prescribed as part of his transition gives him an unfair advantage and made it unsafe for the other wrestlers.
In October 2018, Veronica Ivy won a gold medal at the cycling Masters World Track Championship in Los Angeles.
In August 2022, USA Cycling, citing new regulations on trans athletes, retroactively stripped trans woman Leia Genis of her silver medal earned at the Track National Championships that had taken place in 2022.
In 2024, the San Jose State Spartans women's volleyball team received national attention due to the inclusion of a transgender player on the team and lawsuits that have attempted to rule the player ineligible. These lawsuits were filed not only by players from other teams but also an SJSU teammate and coach. The volleyball teams of Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State, and Nevada canceled their games with the team, with Nevada's players stating that they "refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes." The 2024 team finished with a 12–6 record, with 6 of their wins coming via forfeit.
In 2025, the World's Strongest Woman competition received criticism when transgender athlete Jammie Booker initially won the event. She was soon disqualified due to being "biologically male" per the competition's official rules. Andrea Thompson, who had finished second, was declared the winner.

Trans men

Sports organizations have sought a test for sex verification to verify the sex of participating athletes.
This began in the 1940s with "femininity certificates" provided by a physician. In the 1960s, visual genital inspections were used to confirm gender, followed by chromosomal analysis to detect the presence of the SRY and DYZ1 genes, normally found on the Y chromosome. These tests were all designed to ensure that athletes were only allowed to compete as their sex, but mostly resulted in the exclusion of intersex athletes. Some LGBTQ advocates have referred to sex verification policies as "genital inspection" and "gender policing" of female athletes.
The first mandatory sex test issued by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the world's track and field governing body, for woman athletes was in July 1950 in the month before the European Championships in Belgium. All athletes were tested in their own countries. Sex testing at the actual games began with the 1966 European Athletics Championships' response to suspicion that several of the best women athletes from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were actually men. At the Olympics, testing was introduced in 1968. In some cases, these policies have led to athletes undergoing unnecessary surgery such as female genital mutilation and sterilization. Subsequent reports have shown that the tests could cause psychological harm. Sex verification—identifying athletes whose hormone levels are abnormal compared to others of their purported sex – can cause sex identity crises, elicit demeaning reactions, isolate athletes socially, and lead to depression and sometimes suicide.
More recently, testosterone levels have become the focus and, at the same time, new guidelines have been sought that would allow successfully-transitioned athletes to compete. Since the proposition in 2003 to use testosterone levels, reputable organizations such as the IOC have adopted strict policies that employ testosterone as a metric to allow successfully transitioned female athletes to compete. More recent guidelines have focused entirely on testosterone levels, such as the IOC's current guidelines, originally set in November 2015, which set limits on transgender athletes' testosterone levels for them to be permitted in women's competition categories. Controversy surrounding the 2020 Tokyo Olympics also centered around testosterone levels, specifically over whether the IOC's guidelines should be amended to set stricter testosterone limits, although this proposed change has been strongly debated. The testing of testosterone alone as a marker for athleticism has been debated.
The increased visibility of trans women in professional sports has led to debates on the IOC policies. Many scientists criticize the policies because of published papers showing that people who went through male puberty retain significant advantages even after a year of testosterone suppression. In July 2021, the IOC's medical and science director, Richard Budgett, stated that the 2015 guidelines were outdated. In 2022, new guidelines were released. According to reporting by Sports Illustrated, the new framework "places the responsibility of establishing guidelines for trans inclusion on each individual sport. It also concludes that sporting bodies should not assume that transgender women have an inherent advantage over cisgender women, nor should transgender women have to reduce their testosterone levels to compete." The framework has been criticized by some medical experts who work for sports federations as ignoring the science on sex, gender, and performance and leading to unfair competition. They suggested that rules based on testosterone could vary based on sport and called on the IOC to set standards for sports to follow.
From 1 September 2025, World Athletics will require a one-off genetic test for any athlete seeking to compete in the female category at world-ranking events. The rules will also apply to the September 2025 World Athletics Championships.