The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will likely implement a blanket ban blocking transgender women athletes from competing in womens competitions by the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games. Most international governing sports bodies have already banned trans women. The IOCs ban would comply with President Donald Trumps wish to ban all trans athletes from the event.The IOC will likely put a ban into effect over the next six to 12 months, multiple sources told The Guardian, following through with new IOC President Kirsty Coventrys campaign promise to do so. Trump named himself chair of a White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics in August and said, The United States will not let men steal trophies from women at the 2028Olympics. Related Dozens of women athletes would have been disqualified under a newly adopted but sketchy sex test Only a handful of out trans and nonbinary athletes have competed in womens Olympic sports, and none of them have ever won medals, despite being allowed to participate from 2004 to 2024 (and despite Trumps lies claiming otherwise). Current IOC policy allows trans women athletes to compete if they meet the qualifying criteria set by their sports governing bodies and if their testosterone levels stay below a certain threshold.Nevertheless, the IOCs probable ban has received internal pushback over whether it would also exclude athletes who were assigned female at birth but have male chromosomes and male testosterone levels, like the South African Olympic medalist, sprinter Caster Semenya. IOC insiders told The Guardian they expect a ban would block any athletes who have undergone male puberty from competing in womens events. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today The imminent possibility of an IOC trans sports ban arose in part due to a recent presentation delivered by the IOCs director of health, medicine, and science, Dr. Jane Thornton. Her presentation reportedly included a science-based review of evidence showing permanent physical advantages for people assigned male at birth and mentioned using a cheek-swab gene test to determine athletes biological sex.Trump said he wanted to reintroduce sex testing at the 2028 Olympics, which would use physical/medical examinations and chromosome tests to prove athletes biological sex. This practice was discontinued in 2000 after decades of problematic implementation. Sex tests routinely misidentified female athletes born with relatively rare genetic abnormalities that affect the development of testes and ovaries or the expression of secondary sexual characteristics. In short, such tests will likely prove that many cisgender female athletes have biological features that make themintersex, according to Myron Genel, M.D., a pediatric endocrinologist at the Yale School of Medicine.What [an IOC gender testing] policy will do is wreak havoc on intersex women who will have had no idea they were intersex until they are forced to undergo an invasive DNA test, wrote trans civil rights lawyer Alejandra Caraballo via Bluesky. They will be disqualified and have their entire lives upended. Athletes have completed suicide over this.Since the olympics are being held in LA, this policy would violate state civil rights law and I hope trans and intersex athletes challenge such a policy, Caraballo added. In February, Trump signed an executive order banning trans female athletes from school sports. The order also promised to pressure the IOC into banning trans athletes. His order explicitly called upon numerous sports governing bodies to pass policies forbidding trans women from competing alongside cis women.When signing his executive order, Trump also directed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to deny visas to men attempting to fraudulently enter the United States while identifying themselves as women athletes. To this end, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has threatened topermanently ban any foreign trans athlete who tries to enter the United Statesunder a 1952 law that punishes individuals whofraudulently misrepresent their identities in order to enter the country.As a result, any foreign-born trans athletes who would have competed in the Olympics or any other international sports competition held in the U.S. risked having their visas revoked and getting permanently banned from the United States, even if their home countries laws allow them to change the gender listed on their birth certificates and other government-issued identification documents.Editors note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at1-877-565-8860. Its staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at1-800-273-8255.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.