Policies on trans women in sports have tightened sharply since 2022. At the international elite level, the federations that govern swimming, track and field, and cycling now bar transgender women who went through any meaningful part of male puberty from women’s competition. The NCAA adopted a similar birth-sex rule for college athletics in February 2025. More than half of U.S. states restrict transgender girls from girls’ teams in K-12 and high school sports. And in July 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases that will decide whether those state bans survive under the Constitution and Title IX.
Where you sit in that landscape depends entirely on the level of competition, the sport, and the state.
International Elite Competition
The three most prominent international federations closed women’s categories to trans women who experienced male puberty during a roughly year-long stretch in 2022 and 2023. Each framed the rule around developmental biology rather than current testosterone levels.
World Aquatics adopted its policy in June 2022. A transgender woman is eligible for the women’s category only if she has not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2, or before age 12, whichever is later. In practice, this excludes nearly every trans woman currently competing internationally, because most transition well after that developmental window.
World Athletics, which governs track and field, followed in March 2023. Its rule uses the same Tanner Stage 2 / age 12 threshold. A trans woman must also have kept her serum testosterone below 2.5 nanomoles per liter continuously since puberty and must keep it there while she competes. Legal gender recognition and surgery are not required.1World Athletics. Eligibility Regulations for Transgender Athletes – Effective 31 March 2023
The Union Cycliste Internationale tightened its testosterone threshold in 2022 and then went further, banning all transgender women who transitioned after male puberty from women’s events across every discipline on the UCI International Calendar. The UCI said current science does not confirm that two years of hormone therapy at 2.5 nmol/L is enough to eliminate the advantages conferred by male puberty.2UCI. The UCI Adapts Its Rules on the Participation of Transgender Athletes
These policies emerged after the International Olympic Committee stepped back from setting a single global standard. Its November 2021 “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” dropped the previous requirement that trans women suppress testosterone below 10 nmol/L for 12 months and told each federation to write its own rules based on the demands of its sport.3International Olympic Committee. IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations The framework urged evidence-based, narrowly drawn restrictions and said exclusion should be a last resort. What federations produced instead were bright-line bans.
NCAA College Athletics
The NCAA rewrote its transgender participation policy on February 6, 2025. A student-athlete assigned male at birth cannot compete on an NCAA women’s team.4NCAA. NCAA Announces Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy Change The rule took effect immediately and applies even to athletes who had qualified under the previous testosterone-based review.
Practice and team benefits are treated separately from competition. A student-athlete assigned male at birth may still practice with a women’s team and receive benefits that come with membership, such as medical care. The NCAA said this cannot cost a female athlete a roster spot, scholarship, or competitive opportunity. Sports that hold mixed men’s and women’s NCAA championships, like rifle, are exempt from the restriction.5NCAA. Participation Policy for Transgender Student-Athletes
The rule cuts the other direction too. A student-athlete assigned female at birth who has begun testosterone therapy cannot compete on a women’s team, because doing so would trigger NCAA mixed-team rules and cost the team its eligibility for women’s championships. That athlete may still practice with the women’s team and receive student-athlete benefits.4NCAA. NCAA Announces Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy Change
This is a clean break from the prior framework, which set sport-by-sport testosterone benchmarks and required lab results and physician documentation. All of that medical review is gone. One criterion — sex assigned at birth — decides eligibility.
K-12 and High School Sports
At least 27 states have enacted laws restricting transgender students from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity. These laws generally require students to compete on teams matching the sex on their original birth certificate. Hormone levels and transition status are not considered. Legislators typically justify the restrictions as protecting competitive opportunities and scholarships for female athletes.
The result is a patchwork. A transgender girl may be entirely barred from her school’s volleyball team in one state while facing no restriction in the next. High school athletic associations in restrictive states verify eligibility through birth certificates at registration.
Legal challenges have produced mixed results. Some federal courts have blocked enforcement against specific plaintiffs under Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause; others have upheld the state laws.6Congress.gov. Gender and School Sports – Federal Action and Legal Challenges to State Laws Where courts have sided with transgender athletes, the relief has usually been narrow, blocking the law as applied to the plaintiff rather than striking it down.
Title IX and Federal Policy
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bars discrimination “on the basis of sex” in any education program that receives federal funding.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 20 USC Ch. 38 – Discrimination Based on Sex or Blindness Whether “sex” includes gender identity is the fault line, and the federal answer has flipped with each administration.
The Biden administration’s 2024 Title IX rule extended protections to gender identity and sexual orientation. Federal courts blocked significant portions of that rule in multiple states before the administration left office. In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order declaring the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female, defining sex as “an individual’s immutable biological classification” based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” and stating that sex “does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.'” The order directed agencies to rescind guidance reflecting the prior interpretation, including the Department of Education’s Title IX materials.
Congress is moving in the same direction. The House passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act on January 14, 2025, and the Senate received it.8Congress.gov. Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 The bill would amend Title IX to make it a violation for a federally funded education program to “permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls,” defining sex “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”9Congress.gov. Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 – Text Male-sex athletes could still train or practice with women’s teams, provided no female athlete loses a roster spot, scholarship, or competitive opportunity.
The Supreme Court Cases to Watch
In July 2025, the Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases challenging state transgender athlete bans: Little v. Hecox from Idaho and West Virginia v. B.P.J. from West Virginia.6Congress.gov. Gender and School Sports – Federal Action and Legal Challenges to State Laws The Ninth Circuit found Idaho’s ban likely violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Fourth Circuit held that West Virginia’s law violated Title IX as applied to the plaintiff.
Rulings are expected in 2026. They should resolve the split among lower courts and set a national standard for whether states can categorically restrict sports participation based on sex assigned at birth. Whichever way the Court rules, the decisions will reach beyond the two state laws in front of it and shape how Title IX applies to every school district, university, and state athletic association in the country.
Medical Data When Testosterone Testing Is Still Required
The NCAA’s shift to a birth-sex rule ended the college-level requirement to share medical data for eligibility. International federations that still use testosterone monitoring have not. Athletes in those systems submit to regular blood testing and disclosure to the governing body and its contractors.
Under the NCAA’s prior framework, student-athletes signed HIPAA and FERPA consent forms authorizing their athletics department to share protected health information with the NCAA. The forms warned that once information reached the NCAA, it “may no longer be protected by federal privacy laws.” Signing was voluntary in name only, since refusing meant ineligibility. Any athlete still navigating a testosterone-based eligibility process at the international level should ask, before signing, exactly what data will be collected, who will see it, and how long it will be kept.
Filing a Title IX Complaint
A student-athlete who believes a school or university has violated Title IX can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Complaints must generally be filed within 180 days of the most recent discriminatory act. Miss that window and you can request a waiver by showing good cause.10U.S. Department of Education. OCR Discrimination Complaint Form
The form asks for identifying information for you, the person discriminated against if different, and the school. You describe the conduct and identify the legal basis, which in this context is sex discrimination. If the office needs to disclose your identity to investigate, you will be asked to sign a consent form. Do not return it within 20 calendar days and the complaint is closed. For minors, a parent or legal guardian signs.10U.S. Department of Education. OCR Discrimination Complaint Form
How the Office for Civil Rights handles such a complaint depends on the administration’s reading of Title IX. Under the current executive order defining sex as biological, the office may treat restrictions on transgender athletes differently than the prior administration would have. The Supreme Court’s 2026 rulings could settle which reading controls.