Riley Gaines left the 2022 NCAA Championships without a trophy after tying for fifth place with a biological male.
The NCAA handed the only fifth-place trophy to Lia Thomas – and told Gaines hers would arrive in the mail.
But the International Olympic Committee just announced that will never happen on their watch again.
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Trump signed the "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order in February 2025.
It gave the Secretary of State authority to pressure the IOC directly – and threatened to deny visas to any athlete competing under policies that ignored biological sex.
The NCAA folded the day after the order dropped.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee updated its guidance within months, citing the executive order by name.
Then Trump announced an Olympic task force and declared there would be testing at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
The IOC began its formal review in September 2024.
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On Thursday, they announced the result: women's Olympic competition is now restricted to biological females, confirmed by a one-time SRY gene screening.
Not testosterone levels.
Not hormone therapy thresholds.
Biology.
"The scientific evidence is very clear," IOC President Kirsty Coventry said. "Male chromosomes give performance advantages in sports that rely on strength, power, or endurance."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said exactly what needed to be said: "You cannot change your sex. President Trump's Executive Order protecting women's sports made this happen."
What Lia Thomas Cost Riley Gaines and Every Woman at the 2022 NCAA Championships
Gaines wasn't the only one crying in Atlanta that day in 2022.
She was standing next to the girl who finished 17th – knocked out of All-American status – when Thomas touched the wall in the 500-yard freestyle.
That girl looked at Gaines and said, "I just got beat by someone who probably didn't have to try this morning."
The University of Pennsylvania held those records for three years.
It took a Trump Education Department investigation, a federal civil rights settlement, and a university apology before Penn updated its record books and sent personalized apology letters to every female swimmer Lia Thomas had displaced.
That is what the left called progress.
The IOC's own working group – scientists, endocrinologists, and sports medicine specialists – reached a clear consensus: males hold a 10–12% performance advantage in most running and swimming events, at least 20% in throwing and jumping, and over 100% in explosive power sports.
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Those margins don't disappear with testosterone suppression.
They don't disappear with time.
They are baked into bone density, lung capacity, and muscle fiber from puberty onward.
The SRY gene test – a cheek swab done once in an athlete's lifetime – detects the sex-determining region Y that initiates male development in utero.
World Athletics adopted it first. World Boxing followed. The IOC is now on board ahead of LA28.
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West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey argued before the Supreme Court in January to defend his state's law protecting women's sports.
He told Fox News Digital the IOC decision proves where the public actually stands. "The underlying societal understanding of this issue is very different than the left believed it was."
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said it plainly: "This is a major step forward for fairness and safety in women's athletics."
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A 79% supermajority of Americans supported keeping biological males out of women's sports as of January 2025.
Twenty-seven states already have statutes on the books.
The Supreme Court is expected to reinforce both this summer.
Trump didn't ask politely. He threatened visas, funding, and State Department pressure.
Every institution that tried to stall eventually ran out of runway – and the IOC, which told the world in 2021 there should be no "presumption of advantage due to biological sex," just reversed that position entirely.
Riley Gaines waited three years for her trophy. The IOC just made sure no woman at the Olympics ever has to wait at all.
Sources:
- Jackson Thompson, "Trump reacts to IOC policy change to ban males from women's sports as activists celebrate," Fox News, March 26, 2026.
- "Olympians react to IOC policy barring biological males from women's sports," Fox News, March 26, 2026.
- "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," White House Presidential Actions, February 5, 2025.
- Bethany S. Wagner and Zachary V. Zagger, "NCAA Bars Transgender Athletes from Women's Sports Aligning With President Trump's Executive Order," Ogletree Deakins, February 7, 2025.
- "UPenn updates swimming records after settlement with feds on transgender athletes case," PBS News, July 2, 2025.
