The ugly history behind the Olympics’ new gender test

[Jessica_Rose ✅]

The ugly history behind the Olympics' new gender test

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/03/the-ugly-history-behind-the-olympics-new-gender-test/ 🔗

Schuyler Mitchell (31 March 2026)

On March 26, the International Olympic Committee announced that all athletes competing in women's sports will be required to undergo genetic eligibility testing. Claiming to be concerned with "fairness" and "the protection of the female category," the IOC aims to ban transgender women from future Olympic games by screening for the SRY gene, which is usually found on the Y chromosome. The 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles will be the first games with this policy in effect.

For queer historian and writer Michael Waters, the IOC's announcement elicited a feeling of déjà vu: The institution has employed similar gender verification rules before—only to abandon them amid public backlash. In his 2024 book, The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports, Waters traces the history of trans athletes in the early 20th century, showing how a World War II–era moral panic around gender expression directly informs today's anti-trans attacks.

I spoke with Waters about his book, the history of sex testing in international sports, and how the IOC's latest policy marks a return to a discriminatory model of gender surveillance that draws from a dark eugenic past.

The IOC's new policy is resurrecting a policy of genetic testing that actually had been active for a few decades in the 20th century. In the 1960s, when the IOC first introduced genetic testing, it used these things called Barr body tests, which essentially were measuring the presence of XX chromosomes. Anyone without two X chromosomes would have been kicked out of women's sports...

[Lori Dee ✅]

This is sexist and sex discrimination. It is only fair that ALL athletes be tested, regardless of competition category.

If they test athletes in the men's category, we might find there are some with Klinefelter syndrome who do not know it. How would they feel about being outed by the IOC?

(In Soup Nazi's voice)
Sorry. Too many X's. No sports for you!