Megan Rapinoe, a legend of the United States women’s national soccer team, is voicing strong opposition to a recent Olympic ruling that bars transgender athletes from competing in women’s events, going as far as to argue the decision was made to satisfy Donald Trump and his administration.
Starting with the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, transgender athletes will be prohibited from participating in the women’s category. Under the updated policy, “eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one-time SRY gene screening.” Officials maintain the rule is both “evidence-based” and “expert-informed.”
Rapinoe, herself an Olympic gold medalist, has made it clear she strongly disagrees. Speaking on a recent episode of her “A Touch More” podcast, she described the policy as a “really horrible rule.”
“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.’”
She also challenged the idea that the rule is grounded in science.
“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 said. “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.
“They sort of lost the battle on gay marriage and lost the battle on all these things so it’s just like, ‘We’re gonna have this whole campaign for all these years to just hate trans people,’ which is such a small percentage of the population. It’s actually on a single hand when we’re talking about sports. And just like thread the absolute tightest needle thread that you possibly could.”
Rapinoe didn’t hold back when discussing what she believes motivated the decision, calling it “really hateful” and tying it directly to political pressure.
“This committee is framing it as based in science, which it’s not,” she said. “This will ultimately just prevent people from competing within the women’s category that they feel like they have an unfair advantage. It’s just really hateful. There’s been so few athletes that are trans or competing as trans and it’s so blatant on its face. It’s a total acquiescence to the Trump administration and to really right-wing conservative politics that really is just bringing down so much hate against such a small percentage of people who are just trying to live their life. It’s just horrible and I’m just sickened by it, really.”
Needless to say, her pushback against Trump led to a lot of reactions on social media.
“Rapinoe is never going to stop going at Trump,” one person wrote in a post on X.
“This is a really complex issue, and it’s clear both sides feel strongly about fairness and inclusion. It’s going to take more than headlines to actually find a balance everyone can agree on,” someone else added.
“Using ‘science’ as a shield for exclusion is just a convenient excuse. This policy isn’t about fairness—it’s about control and gatekeeping in women’s sports,” another person wrote.
“Of course she’s blaming Trump,” someone else said.
Clearly, Rapinoe is frustrated both with Trump and the ruling itself.
About Dave Kelsey
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