Kate is an intersex woman—intersex being a term used for people born with variations in sex characteristics that fall outside of traditional definitions of male or female bodies. She has Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, or CAIS, a rare genetic condition in which individuals with XY chromosomes are resistant to androgens, resulting in a typically female external appearance.
The move marks a reversal of the IOC’s 2015 decision, which went into effect in 2016, to allow transgender athletes to compete without undergoing gender-affirming surgery. And the decision is also a departure from the IOC’s longstanding policy against such gender tests in part because of their inaccuracies among athletes with differences in sex development, such as CAIS.
Under the IOC’s new rules, athletes with CAIS would be exempt from the ban on some intersex women. But Kate says it remains unclear how that exemption would be interpreted or enforced in practice.
Androgen insensitivity conditions are often described as existing along a spectrum. Critics of the new policy argue that drawing a line between who qualifies and who does not would require clinical judgment—yet where that line would be drawn remains unclear.
“Biological sex in humans is determined by a complex interplay of chromosomal, gonadal, hormonal, and phenotypic (physical) factors,” said Andrew Sinclair, a geneticist who helped discover the SRY gene in 1990. “The presence of the SRY gene alone does not define biological sex.”
By focusing on the presence of the SRY gene, the policy could exclude some athletes with differences in sex development, including intersex women who have XY chromosomes but were assigned female at birth and have developed as female. An estimated 2% of the population has variations in sex traits, though the true number may be higher, as many people only discover these differences through genetic testing.
For transgender athletes, the reversal from earlier Olympic policy marks a devastating blow.
Read more: Letting Transgender Kids Play Sports Can Benefit All Kids
After the ruling, Anderson said she was “disappointed,” but not surprised. “I was really hoping they were better than that. I think it's gonna hurt a lot more people than it’s going to help.”
When it comes to intersex women, Williams argues the evidence is “so thin” that there are physical advantages in the sport, and that the research cited by the IOC to justify its policy is “such poor quality, it is laughable.”
How the policy could also affect cisgender women
While the policy primarily targets transgender women and some intersex women, critics say its effects could extend across the entire women’s field.
Two-time Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya identifies as a cisgender woman, but has faced questions about her sex for nearly two decades. In an opinion piece published with TIME, she called the ruling a “disgrace” and warned that it could “disproportionately impact women from the global South.”
Erika Lorshbough, a lawyer and executive director of the advocacy group interACT who is intersex themselves, explained that many athletes undergoing genetic testing may only learn they have intersex variations during the genetic testing process.
Lorshbough and interACT work with intersex youth, and says that even before the new IOC ruling, their team had recorded an increase in harassment of young intersex athletes.
Stigma was part of the reason why IOC stopped performing the genetic tests prior to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. The tests were prone to producing false positives, which were deemed “highly discriminatory,” and found to be full of “functional and ethical inconsistencies,” according to one study published at the time.
Politics over policy?
The policy has also drawn political attention. After the decision was announced on March 26, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X that “President Trump's Executive Order protecting women's sports made this happen!”
IOC President Kirsty Coventry has denied the decision is political, saying during an online press conference, “this was a priority for me way before President Trump came into his second term.”
Coventry’s comments have done little to assuage transgender athletes like Mosier, however.
“It seems very, very apparent that there wasn’t a new science that would have swayed this decision, and the appropriate experts and participants in this conversation weren’t brought to the table to make it really a robust process.”
“For that message to be that they're not welcome, or that it's just not an option, made me really sad.”
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