Women questioned: How the Olympics’ new rules target all women
By Leigh Patrick, February 2 2026—
Your womanhood is questioned as you prepare for practice. Strangers wonder aloud if you have two X chromosomes, as if that alone defines your womanhood. They don’t notice a sports panel reviewing files and debating your hormones. Stepping onto a court or field isn’t just about talent but also about body and identity. This is the direction international sport is heading. It is a global issue affecting girls on multiple levels. An increase in laws rooted in transphobia worldwide is a poor disguise for widespread misogyny.
As the International Olympic Committee (IOC) moves towards new rules on who can compete in women’s categories — covering testosterone levels, genetic tests and bans — a quiet truth emerges: these policies impact all women, not just trans women. They force all women to defend their bodies and prove what’s inside, deepening divides instead of bridging them. Under the guise of protecting women, these laws revive the age-old question: who counts as a woman and who decides?
The proposed rules will issue a ban on all women who have undergone male puberty and will cover athletes with Differences of Sex Development (DSD). Individuals with DSD are raised as girls from birth but possess male chromosomes and male levels of testosterone. If these bans apply to “male levels of testosterone,” we have to ask: who defines that? And what happens when millions of cis women fall outside that definition?
What happens to women who naturally have higher testosterone because of conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), tumours, Cushing’s disease or androgen-secreting tumours — rare growths on the ovaries or adrenal glands — that can increase testosterone? Even some medications can increase testosterone levels. Not only is a blanket ban deeply misogynistic, but it is playing into ableism and stating, whether blatantly or subliminally, that only “healthy” women can play sports.
Despite the confidence with which these policies are presented, the science behind them is far from settled. Peer-reviewed research finds that existing studies on trans athletes are limited, small and often inconclusive, and that after two to three years of gender-affirming hormone therapy, trans women’s muscle mass, strength and cardiovascular markers approach those of cisgender women.
Testosterone itself is a poor predictor of athletic performance. Women naturally show enormous variation in androgen levels. When they do have higher levels due to medical conditions, there is no consistent connection to physical advantages. Medical literature warns that testosterone fluctuates due to medication, stress, illness and endocrine conditions, none of which make someone “less” of a woman or automatically “more” of an athlete. The scientific evidence to justify these bans simply does not support the sweeping conclusions being drawn from it. In fact, they reveal that sex and gender are far more complicated than the chromosomes and hormones in the body.
Success in sports relies on maximizing physical differences. Athletes like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt were born with genetic and physical advantages that have helped them excel in their respective sports. Phelps has an exceptional wingspan and is also double-jointed, “turning his feet into virtual flippers.” Bolt’s height allowed him to take fewer steps to accelerate and complete a 100m race in three to four fewer steps than his rivals. When men have these genetic anomalies, they’re celebrated as luck and a good thing, and they’re seen as having trained in the sport where their anomaly helps them. By contrast, when a woman has a genetic anomaly, it’s seen as dangerous and something to be monitored. In policing women who may have varying physical advantages in their sports, not men, it highlights the larger issue: the new rule is an attempt at gender-based control, not fairness or safety. It’s hypocritical to impose these sanctions on female bodies while expecting all women’s bodies to be similar enough, one prototype, when it’s likely that male bodies aren’t one prototype and that they should use their physical advantages.
The impact of these policies falls unevenly along racial lines. For decades, sex testing in sport has disproportionately targeted Black and Brown women — particularly athletes from Africa, South Asia and the Global South. From Caster Semenya to Dutee Chand to Annet Negesa, the women subjected to the harshest scrutiny have been those whose bodies do not fit the Western ideals of femininity. This isn’t a coincidence; it’s a pattern. When governing bodies try to police “womanhood,” they inevitably police race and cultural norms. Sex testing becomes not just misogynistic, transphobic and ableist, but also becomes deeply racialized, turning into another tool for enforcing whose bodies deserve to be seen as legitimate and those who are seen as suspicious.
As governing bodies begin policing marginalized groups — primarily through gendered or sexualized repression — it is never just about that group. It is an early warning sign of broader authoritarian control. LGBTQ+ rights being tightly regulated and stripped away is the canary in the coal mine. Across the globe, attacks on LGBTQ+ rights are not isolated events — they are early markers of democratic backsliding. As Chatham House warns, when a society begins policing who counts as human, or whose identity is considered valid, it is rarely the end of the story. What starts as ‘protecting women’s sport’ or ‘preserving fairness’ can quickly morph into broader campaigns to control bodies, identities and freedoms. History shows that gender policing is never the end goal — it’s the beginning.
Girls and women deserve better than policies that treat their bodies as a problem to be solved. Fairness in sport cannot come from surveillance, humiliation or the narrowing of who is allowed to be called a woman. It must stem from recognizing the full spectrum of human variation and from building systems that protect all athletes instead of punishing them for existing. If international sport continues down this path, then fewer girls will feel safe stepping onto the field at all. And when girls begin to disappear from sport, it will not be because they played alongside trans athletes or women with higher testosterone. It will be because the institutions meant to support them taught them that their bodies and identities were never welcome there in the first place.