Legendary U.S. women's national team star Megan Rapinoe is furious with a "horrible" Summer Olympics ruling.
Starting with the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, transgender athletes will not be allowed to compete in the women's category. Swimmers like Lia Thomas, who broke records at Penn during their collegiate career, will not be allowed to compete.
Rapinoe, a legendary U.S. women's national team star, was outraged by the IOC's recent ruling.
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Rapinoe is speaking out.
"Unfortunately, we have to say that all in the same breath as a really horrible rule came out from the International Olympic Committee," Rapinoe said. "They announced a new policy that they’re calling, I can’t even believe that they’re calling it this because it has nothing to do with protecting women, I feel like two people, who played at the very highest level for every competition that you possibly could, don’t agree with this and never felt like this was an issue at all, ‘The Protection of the Female [Women’s] Category.’"
Rapinoe thinks it's a complicated issue.
"We already know that biology, as much as we want it to be just nice and clean and tight and perfectly in one category and another, it’s not," Rapinoe explained. "We know that. So, now what we’re doing is subjecting everybody, all women and all people who are identifying as women to this really invasive testing that only to me says like, ‘Oh we’re just trying to whittle it down to a certain type of woman.' Is that what we’re doing? That’s really the whole game here."
The IOC is standing by its decision
The IOC is standing by its ruling.
"Male sex provides a performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power and endurance," the IOC's announcement read. "To ensure fairness, and to protect safety, particularly in contact sports, eligibility should therefore be based on biological sex."
