Officials at the Olympics are edging closer to a blanket ban on transgender women competing in literally any sport category.
Earlier this month, Dr Jane Thornton from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) updated its members after newly appointed President, Kirsty Coventry, made it her mission to remove trans people from the biggest stage in sport.
“We understand there will be differences depending on the sports. We should make the effort to place emphasis on the protection of the female category and we should ensure that this is done in consensus with all the stakeholders. But we need to do that with a scientific approach and the inclusion of the international federations who have already done a lot of work in this area,” Kirsty earlier said.
Its pretty simple @suzanne_moore.
“Over twenty years one trans woman athlete participated in the Olympics and she was last. Because of that success trans women are now banned indefinitely”
Sorted
https://t.co/q8qH93AjZc
— Steph Richards: (She/her) – Say NO to hate. (@PompeySteph) November 10, 2025
Dr Jane Thornton’s presentation was recieved well by members, by all accounts. She referenced alleged scientific evidence that showed permanent physical advantages to being born male.
“It was a very scientific, factual and unemotional presentation which quite clearly laid out the evidence,” a source privy to the presentation told The Times.
The ban is believed to come into effect in 2026, with the IOC confirming the presentation to The Guardian: “An update was given by the IOC’s director of health, medicine and science to the IOC members last week during the IOC commission meetings. The working group is continuing its discussions on this topic and no decisions have been taken yet. Further information will be provided in due course.”
This is why the Olympics’ ban on trans women would be beyond stupid
I have no clue how trans women are going to be banned from Olympics when the first open transgender woman came last in her heat.
— Matias Hintsa
(@Masaim91) November 14, 2025
Once again, less than one per cent of the world population has become the punching bag for the other 99 per cent. We’ve seen it spread like a plague through almost every aspect of life, whether that be in the form of grassroots sport or the simple act of using a bathroom.
While it’s obviously an incredibly divisive subject, in part due to it being used as a political football, the Olympics are missing one major point about its potential ban on trans women: It’s not even an issue.
With all the humdrum and fuss over trans women in sport, you’d think the dolls are dominating in everything from swimming to football, but that just isn’t the case. To date, there has only been one openly trans woman to compete at the Olympics, weightlifter Laurel Hubbard. But she slaughtered the competition at the Tokyo 2020 Games, right? Nope, she went home with exactly zero medals. See my point?
Credit: Seokyong Lee/Penta Press/Shutterstock
While some (not you, because you have common sense) could argue that the ban would protect future athletes from having their medals stolen by trans people, how likely is that really? Considering trans people make up less than one per cent of the population, how many trans women are competing at a high enough level to even make it to the Olympics? The lack of data would suggest a tiny, tiny amount.
With so many issues facing sport today, from proper financial assistance for grassroots teams to the shocking prevalence of sexual harassment in the sports space, surely the energy used to persecute trans people could be better spent elsewhere?
For more like this, like The Tab on Facebook.
Featured image credit: Seokyong Lee/Penta Press/Shutterstock and Oscar J Barroso/AFP7/Shutterstock
