Twelve standing commissions — among them bodies devoted to human rights, gender equality, sustainability, and digital engagement — are to be wound down by the International Olympic Committee, which disclosed the decision on Friday, with targeted working groups convened on an ad hoc basis set to take their place.
The restructuring builds on governance changes that took shape once Kirsty Coventry assumed the presidency. Her administration placed the now-disbanded commissions on suspension as early as February 2026 and drew on findings from a confidential advisory body, which fed into a determination reached by the IOC in March 2026. That ruling, set to take effect at the Los Angeles Games in 2028, would restrict eligibility for women's Olympic events to athletes whose biological profile does not carry the SRY gene.
Over a hundred advocacy organisations, along with Human Rights Watch and the researcher credited with identifying the SRY gene, have raised objections that the two policy moves set aside longstanding human rights protections without adequate scientific or ethical justification.
Coventry's tenure as president entered its second year as the restructuring took shape. Holding two Olympic gold medals from the 200-metre backstroke and a prior term as Zimbabwe's sports minister, Coventry became the IOC's first female and first African president following a vote in March 2025. Upon assuming the role formally, her approach to decision-making bypassed the established commission framework in favour of narrower, purpose-built working groups.
Of the bodies under review, a dozen have been dissolved, with 19 retaining their operational status. Each of those now-disbanded bodies drew between 10 and 30 members, who gathered at IOC headquarters in Lausanne for face-to-face meetings on an annual basis.
Activities across all these groups had been placed under a formal hold from February 2026, a suspension that remained in effect until the announcement came through. That sequence of events falls against the backdrop of an IOC decision handed down on 26 March 2026 — during the period when Coventry has held the presidency — establishing that entry into women's Olympic competition would be limited to athletes assigned female at birth.
Starting at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, athletes wishing to compete in women's Olympic events will need to clear a one-time eligibility check based on SRY gene testing, carried out through either a cheek swab or a blood draw, before qualifying or taking part. Under IOC rules, athletes whose genetic testing reveals the SRY marker — associated with male sex development pathways — are not permitted to enter the women's competition category.
Athletes diagnosed with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, along with those whose sex development differences produce no measurable testosterone advantage, fall under a limited carve-out within the rules. Athletes with differences in sexual development also fall within the regulation's scope, a provision that bears directly on the competitive standing of 800-metre Olympic gold medallist Caster Semenya, whose testosterone levels above typical female ranges have sat at the centre of prolonged legal proceedings.
Support for the IOC's eligibility framework came from United States officials. The measure draws on an executive order from President Donald Trump — one directing federal agencies to bar transgender women from female athletic competition — which carried the title "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports." The White House described the IOC's move as rational and long in coming.
A coalition of more than 100 advocacy groups — among them the Sport & Rights Alliance, ILGA World, and Humans of Sport — released a joint statement arguing that mandatory genetic screening poses a threat to all women in sport, not solely those who are transgender or intersex. Human Rights Watch, an organisation that had voiced support for the IOC's 2021 framework on fairness and inclusion at the time of its release, contended that the revised policy direction set aside protections previously in place without drawing on sufficient scientific or ethical input.
Within its own policy documentation, the IOC noted that UN Special Rapporteurs and human rights specialists have reached divergent conclusions about whether sex-based eligibility criteria carry legitimate standing. Objections put forward in a February 2026 joint statement from UN human rights specialists covered three distinct areas of concern about compulsory genetic screening: possible conflicts with established international human rights frameworks, the question of whether individuals retain sovereignty over their own bodies, and doubts about what the SRY test can reliably determine.
The researcher whose 1990 laboratory work led to the identification of the SRY gene, Sinclair, has put forward the position that relying on that gene's presence as a marker for biological sex does not hold up under scientific scrutiny. His position holds that the test can only detect the presence of the gene itself, leaving aside the broader biological intricacies of sex development — a stance that carried weight when a group of specialists, including him, made the case to the IOC for dropping SRY-based screening before the 2000 Sydney Games.
Parts of the IOC's advisory framework remain intact. Three governing bodies — the Athletes' Commission, the Ethics Commission, and the Audit Committee — are expected to carry on their work without disruption. The IOC noted that a stretch of more than a year spent on internal review preceded the February pause, with that process forming the basis for the adjustments now in place.
