US Olympic Committee bans men from women’s competitions
Caroline MolloyThe United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has banned men from women’s athletic competitions, as indicated in its Athlete Safety Policy released June 18.
Page 5 of the policy states, in a section titled “additional requirements,” that the USOPC is “committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport.”
“The USOPC will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities, e.g., IOC, IPC, NGBs, to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201,” the committee adds.
The reference was to President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
“It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy,” the order states. “It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
Jennifer Sey, who launched XX-XY Athletics in Denver as an apparel company dedicated to protecting women’s sports, expressed gratitude for a “better late than never” move by the USOPC.
In a social media post, Sey added her observation that even the New York Times “correctly said ‘banned from women’s competitions’ not ‘from competition’” in its coverage of the news, a phrase she describes as a sign of “progress.”
The Times noted a letter from the USOPC to its stakeholders, obtained by the media outlet’s “The Athletic” section, in which both USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes stated that all national governing bodies “are required to update their applicable policies in alignment.”
“The USOPC has engaged in a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials,” Hirshland and Sykes wrote. “As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations.”
So-called “gender justice” activists condemned the policy change.
