New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender woman to compete in an Olympic Games after being selected for the women’s weightlifting team at Tokyo 2020.
Hubbard, who failed to register a successful lift in the women’s +87kg category, had competed in men’s events before coming out as transgender in 2013.
The IOC’s new policy also applies to athletes with DSD (differences in sex development). Both World Athletics and World Boxing introduced genetic sex screening this year to protect the integrity of women’s competition.
The 2024 Paris Olympics were engulfed in controversy after Algeria’s Imane Khelif won the gold medal in women’s welterweight boxing, a year after he was disqualified from the World Championships for allegedly failing a gender suitability test.
The IOC cleared the 25-year-old to compete – along with Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who was also banned by the suspended International Boxing Association (IBA).
The IOC said competitors were eligible for the women’s division if their passports stated they were female.
Both fighters said they were women, had always competed in the women’s division and there was no suggestion they were transgender.
Some reports speculated that the IBA said Khelif has XY chromosomes to speculate that the fighter could have DSD like runner Caster Semenya. However, the BBC could not confirm whether or not this is the case.
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