Contributor: A sex test for Olympic contenders harms all women

Swabs and blood tests to check for the SRY gene are no way to determine whether an athlete is female. (Emanuele Cremaschi / Getty Images)

The International Olympic Committee claims that requiring sex testing for every female athlete will “protect women,” but instead it will force all women to prove their bodies in ways that are invasive, unfair and unnecessary. And the first affected Games will be LA28.

Under the IOC’s new policy, all girls and women with Olympic dreams will be subjected to mandatory genetic testing. That means giving up private medical information. If they refuse, they don’t get to compete. This isn’t a move toward equal access for women and girls, but a move away.

Many headlines focused on one point: banning transgender women. But that misses the bigger story: This policy puts every woman’s body under a microscope and creates a system in which officials decide who is “woman enough” to compete.

Historically, this has never gone well.

Sex testing and the policing of women’s bodies in sport is not new; it is a failed idea resurrected. Before genetic testing, women athletes were forced to undergo humiliating exams to prove they were women. Officials judged bodies based on narrow ideas of what a woman should look like, often targeting Black and brown women who were more likely to be seen as “different.” People the officials deemed “woman enough” to participate often did not include intersex women, who may have a different build, facial or body hair, or other traits outside of the Eurocentric feminine ideal.

Later, sports organizations tried genetic testing. That didn’t work either. Scientists found that there is no single gene or test that can define sex in a clear, fair way. In fact, the scientist who discovered the SRY gene itself, which was briefly used for Olympic sex testing in the 1990s and is the basis of the new policy, insisted it should not be used for such a purpose. These tests were dropped decades ago because they were unreliable and harmful.

Now they’re coming back, and the harm could be even greater.

About 1 in 50 people are born with natural variations in their sex traits — also known as intersex (referred to in the IOC policy as having a “difference of sex development”). These variations don't confer athletic advantages. But many young women will be disqualified because they have such variations — and many of them don’t even know it.

More than 80% of Americans have never undergone medical genetic testing, and global rates are even higher. Under IOC’s policy, some young women and girls will find out they’re intersex for the first time through mandatory testing – without warning, support or privacy.

Imagine training your whole life for a sport, only to be told you don’t belong because of something you didn’t even know about. That’s the reality this policy creates.

Athletes will be publicly exposed and harassed. We’ve seen this before, too.

And for what?

Since the mid-2000s, when transgender athletes began being allowed into Olympic competition, only one openly transgender woman has competed in the women’s category. Trans participation is extremely rare and yet is being used to justify sweeping bans.

Meanwhile, the policy’s costs on all women and girls are very real. Genetic testing is expensive. In some cases, athletes are already being told they must pay for it themselves. And in some countries, genetic testing is banned, forcing athletes to travel elsewhere to access it. This adds another barrier in an already difficult system.

Women’s sports don’t need more barriers. They need more support.

They need better funding. Better facilities. More media coverage. Fewer opportunities for abuse. More opportunities for girls to play and grow.

This policy does none of that.

Instead, it will drain funding, divert attention from actual sport and drive mistreatment of athletes. It also sends a message: Before you can compete, you must prove your body is acceptable.

It also raises serious ethical questions: Who will store this sensitive medical data? Who gets access to it? What happens if it’s leaked or misused?

Sports are supposed to be about fairness. But fairness doesn’t mean exclusion. It means creating systems in which athletes can compete with dignity.

At its best, sport celebrates the human body in all its forms. Strength looks different. Speed looks different. Bodies are different. That’s part of the beauty of sports. Putting limitations on who is “woman enough” to compete hurts that.

Hosting a successful Los Angeles 2028 Olympics means respecting the dignity and humanity of women who compete. Authentic support means increasing investment, access and respect — not testing, scrutiny or fear.

Because every athlete deserves the chance to compete without having to prove they belong.

Chris Mosier, an advocate for transgender inclusion in sport, is a co-author of “Fair Game." Erika Lorshbough is the executive director of InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, an organization advancing the rights of people with intersex variations, and a graduate of UCLA Life Sciences and the Luskin School of Public Affairs.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.