Early last week, The Times of London reported that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is releasing a new policy that keeps women’s sporting events for women only. Here’s what it means for Americans.
As the overseer of all Olympic games, the International Olympic Committee has significant authority in governing national Olympic committees (like the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee [USOPC]), issuing oversight of the games and maintaining fairness and integrity across all participation. As the top dogs, they rarely get involved in small matters of debate but rely on the guidance of national Olympic Committees and sport-specific governing bodies when possible. However, they are the ultimate authority of the Olympic Games.
The IOC’s new president, Kirsty Coventry, came in with a promising hope for female athletes, vowing to base her decisions on reason and science. On the debate of men in women’s sports, she said she would play a “leading role” in the path forward. She appears to be a woman of her word as the new eligibility standards come on the heels of an IOC science-based review of gender inclusion standards. Sources say the review was “a very scientific, factual and unemotional presentation which quite clearly laid out the evidence.” The facts are clear; male advantage is permanent.
This should be accepted as a pat on the back to all Concerned Women for America’s (CWA) leaders who have been on the forefront of this issue for a decade. It was never about hate or identity; it was about safety and fairness, and truth was always on our side.
We should also honor Coventry’s commitment. She appears to be a leader willing to put herself on the line to protect women, which is a promising sign for the future of female athletics worldwide.
However, at this point, we do not have the final policy text. CWA members remember all too well when the NCAA announced they would comply with President Trump’s Executive Order, then released a bogus policy based on amendable birth certificates. It is uncertain exactly what this new policy will look like, but President Coventry’s dedication to fairness leaves us optimistic.
As mentioned, the IOC is the ultimate authority of the Olympic Games. The USOPC falls under their governance, and all U.S. national governing bodies (NGBs) under them. Several of these NGBs have issued new “inclusion” policies to “align” with President Trump’s Order, but like the NCAA, many of them lack enforcement as they are based on birth certificates. We will monitor how the IOC’s guidance documents influence the enforcement of U.S. NGBs. Most sports governance, whether local AAU travel basketball or the USOPC itself, refers to these NGBs for guidance on rulemaking.
It should not be missed that the USOPC has utterly failed to stand for fair and safe opportunities for women in sports. They have abdicated nearly all the authority they have to protect women away with a lie that this is a complicated problem for other sports-specific governing bodies to handle. Of course, as the NGBs dropped the ball, the USOPC says nothing, and women lose out. In the U.S. alone, women have lost over 1,900 gold medals to men competing in the women’s-only categories.
Concerned Women for America has offered a simple solution to this: a one-time cheek swab. Athletes undergo all kinds of physicals and tests to maintain eligibility standards; after all, the NCAA didn’t think twice about COVID testing me three times a week to maintain eligibility. A one-time cheek swab to ensure female eligibility is more than reasonable, but the USOPC’s CEO’s refusal is a stab in the back to every American. And that’s why CWA has called for her resignation.
It should embarrass us as Americans, who claim to be the world’s beacon of opportunity and prosperity, to have an international committee force our hand into basic fairness.
We hope Kirsty Coventry, President of the IOC, will release a policy based on science that prioritizes female safety, as the announcement suggested. When politics and ideology are put to rest, the answers are simple. But when they are the dominating factor in decision-making, you end up with leaders like Sarah Hirshland, who has failed Americans in her role as CEO of the USOPC.
