U.S. Olympic and Paralympic officials bar transgender women from Olympic women’s sports

toggle caption Luigi Costantini/AP

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, telling the federations overseeing swimming, athletics and other sports it has an “obligation to comply” with an executive order issued by President Trump.

The change, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year.

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The USOPC change is noted obliquely as a detail under “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” and reference’s Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February. That order, among other things, threatens to “rescind all funds” from organizations that allow transgender athlete participation in women’s sports.

U.S. Olympic officials told the national governing bodies they will need to follow suit, adding that “the USOPC has engaged in a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials” since Trump signed the order.

“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes wrote in a letter. “Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women. All National Governing Bodies are required to update their applicable policies in alignment.”

The nationwide battle over transgender girls on girls’ and women’s sports teams has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans portray the issue as a fight for athletic fairness. More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some policies have been blocked in court by those who say the policies are discriminatory, cruel and unnecessarily target a tiny niche of athletes.

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The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes to limit competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth. That change came a day after Trump signed the executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.

Female eligibility is a key issue for the International Olympic Committee under its new president, Kirsty Coventry. The IOC has allowed individual sports federations to set their own rules at the Olympics — and some have already taken steps on the topic.

Stricter rules on transgender athletes — barring from women’s events anyone who went through male puberty — have been passed by swimming, cycling and track and field. Soccer is reviewing its eligibility rules for women and could set limits on testosterone.

Trump has said he wants the IOC to change everything “having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.” Los Angeles will host the Summer Games in 2028.

Transgender women will no longer be eligible to compete for the United States in the Olympic or Paralympic Games in women’s categories, after a recent policy change from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

The committee cited President Donald Trump’s February executive order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which mandates immediate enforcement, including against schools and athletic associations that “deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms,” according to the document, and directs state attorneys general to identify best practices for enforcing the mandate.

In a memo to the Team USA community on Tuesday, obtained by ABC News, USOPC President Gene Sykes and CEO Sarah Hirshland referenced Trump’s executive order and said, “As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations.”

The USOPC is responsible for supporting, entering and overseeing U.S. teams in the Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as sporting events for all ages, from youth to masters’ competitions.

In an update to its athlete safety policy, without using the word transgender by name, the USOPC said its revised policy “emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments.”

Olympic rings are pictured outside the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ahead of newly elected President Kirsty Coventry first Executive Board meeting at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland, June 25, 2025. Denis Balibouse/Reuters, FILE

“The USOPC is committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport. The USOPC will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities, e.g., IOC, IPC, NGBs, to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201 and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act,” the revised policy says on the USOPC website.

The Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act establishes a process for handling eligibility disputes for each Olympic sport and participation in amateur athletic competitions. It was sponsored by Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and adopted in 1998.

The revised USOPC policy also doesn’t outline how the ban will work, and if the same ruling applies to men’s sports.

ABC News has reached out to the USOPC for clarification and did not immediately hear back.

Following the revised policy, USA Fencing updated its gender eligibility guidelines, which will take effect on Aug. 1. Transgender women, nonbinary athletes, transgender men and intersex athletes will compete exclusively in men’s competitions, according to the policy.

So with the Russians banned from these Games for invading Ukraine, the Americans figured to march to the team gold medal this week, especially with the incomparable Simone Biles back in her leotard. Didn’t they?

The US women’s gymnastics team has won the last seven world championships, two of the last three Olympic titles, and five straight all-around crowns.

PARIS — For two decades now they’ve owned this chalk-covered, tendon-tearing sport, performing with aplomb year after year.

It didn’t look that way midway through Sunday’s qualifying competition at Bercy Arena when the Americans were only 0.1 point ahead of China.

They’d appeared nervous on the beam in their opening rotation. Then Jade Carey, the defending floor champion who’d been feeling ill, stepped out of bounds twice and fell on her backside after bailing on her final tumbling pass, ending up 74th.

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Now here was Biles, the team’s heart and soul, limping around with a tweaked left calf muscle.

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“I might have felt like I was going to puke,” confessed Chellsie Memmel, the team’s technical lead.

But once their taped-up icon soared toward the ceiling on her vault the Yanks rebounded, as is their nature, and ended up winning by more than 5 points over Italy.

“They turned the page after floor and rallied around each other and came back,” Memmel said.

As noteworthy as its sustained excellence across quadrennia is the squad’s resilience after it has been upended.

When Biles withdrew from the team final with a case of the ‘twisties’ before the first event in Tokyo three years ago, her colleagues calmly reset and took the silver behind the Russians.

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When three members of last year’s world team (Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely, and Kayla DiCello) were immobilized at Olympic trials, the selectors tapped Tokyo veterans Jordan Chiles and Carey and added 16-year-old rookie Hezly Rivera.

That’s still by far the best quintet here. The Romanians, who’d been a fixture on the Olympic podium since Nadia Comaneci’s time, haven’t won a team medal since 2012. They were eighth on Sunday. The Chinese, who were third, have been backsliding for five years.

Nobody has the depth and quality that the Americans do. So it was surprising to see everyone but Biles go wiggly and wobbly on beam.

“I know they all can do better than that,” said Memmel. “And they know that and it’s OK.”

Had Biles, who was the last one up, come off the 4-inch-wide elevated walkway it almost surely would have rattled her teammates. But she was solid and sure. And even after injuring her calf (”Uh, oh, not good,” she told her coach) Biles submitted a reverberating floor exercise.

And after half-jokingly crawling on all fours on the runway she launched herself skyward on the vault to complete the rotation. Then the Americans placed second on uneven bars and were up and away to Tuesday evening’s final.

What matters most about the qualifying competition is not the team standing, since the scores don’t carry over. It determines not only who advances to the all-around but who qualifies for finals on the four events.

That’s where the Americans have cashed in ever since they made their big splash in Athens in 2004, collecting four apparatus medals. They hit the motherlode with half a dozen in Rio eight years ago, with Biles picking up two golds and a bronze.

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The US is well positioned this time, too. Biles and Sunisa Lee qualified for the all-around and Chiles would have, too, except for the two-per-country limit. And the Americans will have seven entrants in the apparatus finals.

Biles and Carey are favored to medal in vault, Biles and Chiles on floor, Biles and Lee on beam, and Lee on bars.

The more immediate challenge is structuring the lineup for the team final, which uses a three-up-three-count format. Unlike in qualifying where the low score is dropped, only three athletes compete on each apparatus and all scores are tallied.

Those choices are crucial when the gold-medal battle is close, as it always is when the Russians are in the house. Were they here Memmel, who writes out the lineup, might well have scratched Carey on floor in favor of Lee.

But since the Italians can’t match their depth, the Americans have the luxury of taking the long view and sitting a star here and there in the final.

That’s certainly a possibility with Biles, particularly if she needs an extra day or two for her calf to come along. After missing out on the all-around in Tokyo after winning it in Rio, she obviously would love to join Larisa Latynina and Vera Caslavska as the only women to claim the title twice.

So scratching her on bars, where the US already has steady performers in Lee, Chiles, and Rivera, might be prudent.

The Americans are going to get a double neckful of medals in the upcoming days, but the team title represents global supremacy. That gold medal outshines the rest.

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“We came in having a goal,” said Memmel. “Their goal, it’s very obvious, is to come home with a gold medal. And if that happens, that’s amazing. And if it’s not their night it’s going to be OK. Is it going to sting? Is it going to suck? Well, yes. But if they can all still leave here happy and healthy, that’s a win.”

John Powers can be reached at john.powers@globe.com.