The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday to bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s sports, and now will comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order on the issue, according to a post on the organization’s website.

The new policy, expressed in a short, vaguely worded paragraph, is tucked under the category of “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” on the site, and does not include details of how the ban will work. Nor does the new policy include the word “transgender” or the title of Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” referring to it instead as “Executive Order 14201.”

Trump signed the executive order on Feb. 5.

All US Olympic Sports Must Follow New Policy

The committee’s new policy means that the national governing bodies of sports federations in the United States — which oversee sporting events for all ages, from youth to masters’ competitions — now must follow the USOPC’s lead, according to several CEOs of sports within the Olympic movement.

The USOPC acknowledged on Tuesday that its policy had changed. In an emailed statement, the committee said it had held “a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials” since the executive order was signed. “As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” the statement said, adding that the committee would work with national governing bodies to implement the new policy.

USA Fencing posted a new policy for transgender athletes on Friday that will take effect Aug. 1. Those new rules still allow transgender women to compete, but only in the men’s category. The policy says that nonbinary athletes, transgender men and intersex athletes will also be limited to competing in the men’s category.

The Olympic committee said in its new policy that it was “committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport,” and that it would work with the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee and the national governing bodies of every Olympic sport “to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201 and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act.”

The committee had not announced any plans to comply with Trump’s order. Before the new policy was posted, the committee had stayed away from the issue as the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles inched closer. Instead, it had delegated decisions about transgender athlete eligibility to the national governing bodies of each sport. The Olympic committee has 54 member organizations, according to its website.

Before Monday, the committee’s transgender policy stated that the group was relying on “real data and science-based evidence rather than ideology.”

“That means making science-based decisions, sport by sport and discipline by discipline, within both the Olympic and Paralympic movements,” the former policy said.

The International Olympic Committee has been struggling for years with the issue of transgender and intersex athletes in sports, coming up with various rules at various times, including sex testing, in an effort to balance fairness with inclusivity. Its current policy allows each international sports federation — World Athletics or the International Cycling Federation, for example — to determine if, and how, transgender athletes can compete in sanctioned events at the international level.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Juliet Macur/Chang W. Lee

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