White House responds to IOC policy change to ban males from women's sports as activists celebrate
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to news that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) updated its policies to ensure only biological females compete in women's sports, and will use genetic testing as enforcement.
Leavitt credited Trump's "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order for the change.
"You cannot change your sex. President Trump's Executive Order protecting women's sports made this happen!" Leavitt said.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
Trump signed the order in February of last year, shortly after taking office. The order gives authority to the secretary of state to use measures to get the IOC to change its policy to protect the women's category.
"The Secretary of State shall use all appropriate and available measures to see that the International Olympic Committee amends the standards governing Olympic sporting events to promote fairness, safety, and the best interests of female athletes by ensuring that eligibility for participation in women’s sporting events is determined according to sex and not gender identity or testosterone reduction," the order states.
Last July, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) changed its athlete safety policy to enforce Trump's mandate, directly citing the executive order.
Then, when Trump announced the creation of an Olympic task force in August, Trump declared that "testing" would be used to enforce the protection of women's competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
"There will be some very strong form of testing," Trump said to a question about the use of genetic testing at LA28.
In October, at the USOPC Winter Olympics media summit, 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 and that he expects other world governing bodies to "follow suit."
"It's not necessarily very common to get this specific test in the United States and 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 likely will be following suit," Finnoff said.
Now, the IOC says it will employ the SRY gene test for any competitor in the women's category in any Olympic event.
"Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening," the new policy states.
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing two cases related to policies on trans athletes.
The attorneys general leading the charge to protect women's sports in those cases, John McCuskey of West Virginia and Raul Labrador of Idaho, reacted to the news of the policy change on Thursday.
McCuskey told Fox News Digital he was "very pleased with the IOC's decision to comply with generalized common sense."
McCuskey also credited Trump for his influence in the change.
"President Trump showed up. I don't believe the IOC would be doing this if President Trump hadn't taken a bold leadership position on this," he said.
As McCuskey awaits a SCOTUS decision on the case his state is fighting, he believes the IOC's decision reflects the belief that the general soceity is aligned with his side. McCuskey's team made its oral arguments to justices in January.
"I think it is probably further evidence that even while we were making our arguments, that the underlying societal understanding of this issue is very different than the left believed it was," McCuskey said.
Labrador said he looks forward to the decisions in his case.
"The IOC just announced that Olympic women's sports will be limited to biological females starting in 2028. This is a major step forward for fairness and safety in women's athletics. I'm proud that my office led the defense of Idaho's law doing the same before the U.S. Supreme Court this January. We look forward to the Court's decision in our case this summer," Labrador said.
Many prominent activists who have led the charge in the effort to protect women's sports, including Riley Gaines and Jennifer Sey, have insisted that genetic testing would be necessary to enforce any policy change.
Civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo expressed objection to the IOC policy on BlueSky, criticizing the new genetic testing requirements.
"This testing regimen does not comport with fundamental human rights principals. And I'm not even talking about trans athletes. Only women will be subjected to this. They didn't state who would pay for these tests that cost thousands of dollars. That is make or break for athletes from poor countries," Caraballo wrote.
University of New Brunswick professor of sociology Nathan Kalman-Lamb tore into the new policy on BlueSky.
"The (heinous) International Olympic Committee has just (f---ing) formally banned trans participation in sport," Kalman-Lamb wrote.
"The IOC has just formally unleashed waves of additional harm in the name of sporting 'fairness.' Sport can never justify the dehumanization this ruling requires."
Transgender comedian Stacy Cay spoke out on X.
"There were zero transgender women in the Olympic Games But there are lots of intersex women who are about to find out that according to the IOC, they aren’t women. Gonna be fun," Cay wrote.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.