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NEW YORK – EXCLUSIVE: United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) leadership indicated it’s looking into the use of genetic sex testing amid its new commitment to protecting women’s sports from biological male trans athletes, and earned the praise of President Donald Trump’s White House.
The White House provided a statement to Fox News Digital in response to comments made by USOPC officials at a Tuesday press conference, praising Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order and announcing the organization is looking into genetic sex test options for U.S. teams.
“Keeping men out of women’s sports is critical to ensuring the safety of female athletes and preserving the integrity of these elite events. As President Trump has said time and time again, this is an issue supported by 97 percent of the American public, and adopting this measure at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles will ensure fairness for all of the world’s best athletes,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital.
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USOPC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jonathan Finnoff said that the SRY gene tests being used by World Athletics and World Boxing are “not common” in the U.S., but suggested the USOPC is currently exploring options to employ sex testing options for its own teams.
“It’s not necessarily very common to get this specific test in the United States, so our goal in that was helping to identify labs and options for the athletes to be able to get that testing. And based on that experience, and knowing that some other international federations will likely be following suit, figuring out how we can make this seamless process… is where we are now,” Finnof said. “But we have a good process in place.”
Meanwhile, USOPC Board Chair Gene Sykes called Trump’s executive order to prevent males in women’s sports “consistent with international trend.”
“And fortunately, the executive order that is designed to protect women’s sports in the United States is very consistent with the trend internationally,” Sykes said. “The expectation is that this is, this is where world sport, international sport, will go.”
Trump previously said there will be a “very strong form of testing” in response to a question about mandatory genetic testing for women’s sports at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“I think there is going to be a very strong form of testing,” Trump said. “There will be a very, very strong form of testing, and if the test doesn’t come out appropriately, then they won’t be in the Olympics.”
The USOPC amended its athlete safety policy to suggest compliance with Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order in late July.
“USOPC will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities… to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201,” the policy reads.
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The new president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kirsty Coventry, addressed the topic of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports at her first news conference since taking over in June and said that there is “overwhelming support” by IOC members to protect the female category.
“We understand that there’ll be differences depending on the sport … but it was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost to ensure fairness,” Coventry said. “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.”
The new president added that there is “unanimous” support for coming to an agreement about how to amend the policy and suggested the IOC may take inspiration from the World Athletics policy, which restricts biological males from competing in women’s sports if those males have gone through male puberty.
“It was very clear from the membership the discussion around this has to be done with medical and scientific research at the core, so we are looking at the facts and the nuances and the inclusion of the international federations that have done so much of this work … having a seat at table and sharing with us because every sport is different,” she said.
A presentation at a World Athletics panel in Tokyo in September revealed that 50 to 60 athletes with male biological advantages have been finalists in the female category at global and continental championships since 2000.
The panel was led by the head of the World Athletics Health and Science Department, Dr. Stéphane Bermon, who said sex tests were necessary because of an “over-representation” of DSD (differences of sex development) athletes among finalists, per multiple reports.
Last October, the United Nations said nearly 900 biological females have fallen short of the podium because they were beaten by trans athletes.
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The findings were compiled by Reem Alsalem, the U.N.’s rapporteur on violence against women and titled “Violence against women and girls in sports.”
The report said that more than 600 athletes did not medal in more than 400 competitions in 29 sports, totaling over 890 medals, according to information obtained as of March 30.
“The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males,” the report said.
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