Donald Trump to chair Olympics task force and demand 'strong' tests to keep trans athletes out

President Donald Trump will chair a special task force focused on keeping transgender athletes out of the 2028 Olympics.

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Trump signed an executive order last week that establishes a White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics. Much of the entity’s work will focus on logistical preparation for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

But when announcing the Task Force, Trump also reminded US Olympic Chairman Gene Sykes that the games had agreed to follow the president’s prior order barring transgender women from competing in female sporting events.

“The U.S. will not let men steal trophies from women at the 2028 Olympics — and we appreciate the fairness,” Trump said when announcing the task force.

He also said at the task force that he expects competitors to undergo testing to confirm their gender. “There will be a very, very strong form of testing, and if the test doesn’t come out appropriately, they won’t be in the Olympics,” he said.

The day before Trump signed that executive order, the Department of Homeland Security issued new guidance making clear no “aliens of exceptional ability” visas, those typically granted to athletes in international sporting events, would be granted to transgender females. To do so, according to the new rules, would be “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and deny women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”

In a sign of the importance of the task force’s work, the president named himself as chairman, Vice President JD Vance as vice chairman, and several of his Cabinet members to posts, including his Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Commerce, Transportation, and Homeland Security.

The promise of testing for gender came a year after baseless accusations hounded Algerian Imane Khalief, a cisgender female boxer who won a gold medal at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Vance, then the Republican nominee for Vice President, was among those who wrongly accused Khalief of being transgender, despite no trans athletes competing in those games.

“This is where Kamala Harris's ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match. This is disgusting, and all of our leaders should condemn it,” Vance posted on X. The post remains up.

Trump himself in a speech in August also wrongly suggested both Khalief and Li Yu-ting of Taiwan, who won the featherweight boxing gold in Paris, were transgender, when both were assigned female at birth.

“They were men. They transitioned to women, and they were in the boxing,” he said at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, without saying the women's names.