A most important “no”

In the 1971 sci-fi movie Escape from the Planet of the Apes, humans interrogate time-traveling primates about how apes overcame enslavement and became the predominant species on a future version of Earth. In response, a talking chimp named Cornelius pinpoints the exact historical moment when the balance of power shifted, courtesy of an audacious ape named Aldo who spoke one very small but powerful word:

“He said, ‘No.’”

That scene illustrates why it is of no small significance that the International Olympic Committee last week banned men who self-identify as women from competing in women’s sports. The world’s most high-profile, influential sports governing body told the world’s most demanding group of activists, “No.”

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” IOC president Kirsty Coventry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist for Zimbabwe in swimming, said in a statement. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category.”

Frankly, the IOC should have done this sooner. The committee, sadly, is not the only entity, in sports or otherwise, to cave in to the outrageous and unreasonable demands of the world’s LGBTQ community in the name of “inclusion.” But we’ll take our wins when we can get them.

Less than two years ago, at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, much of the world recoiled in horror when Italy’s Angela Carini didn’t even last a full minute in her women’s welterweight boxing match against Algeria’s Imane Khelif. The latter boxer had been disqualified from the International Boxing Association’s world championships for failing a gender test because Khelif’s body produces XY chromosomes.

After Khelif landed two of the hardest blows Carini had ever absorbed, Carini threw off her protective headgear and sank to her knees at mid-ring.

“This is unjust!” Carini cried in Italian.

Khelif, of course, eventually won the women’s 146-pound gold medal, pummeling three more actual women along the way.

Khelif’s defenders argued that the pugilist suffers from DSD, or “differences in sex development,” an extremely rare medical condition in which a person outwardly appears to be one sex based on genitalia but produces chromosomes and hormones associated with the other. (Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, who won women’s boxing gold in 2024 in the 126-pound weight class, reportedly suffers from the same condition.) Yet mere months after the Olympics, a French news outlet leaked a medical report indicating that Khelif is, in fact, male.

Carini, for her part, suffered the indignity that many female athletes have had to endure after daring to speak out about the unfairness of losing to a male competitor: She had to apologize. “If the IOC said she can fight, I can respect that decision,” Carini told reporters a day after losing to Khelif.

The IOC’s decision means the whole nightmarish scenario between Khelif and Carini won’t play out on American soil when the Summer Olympics come to Los Angeles in 2028. It won’t matter how a male athlete self-identifies. Unless he passes a gender test, his only option will be to compete against other males. Claims of having DSD won’t allow male athletes to compete in their desired gender category, the New York Post reported.

And women like Carini will no longer have to endure public shaming for airing concerns about fairness and safety after being soundly defeated by male competitors. Of course, they also won’t be able to claim biological disadvantage as an excuse for losing. Then again, they won’t need to.

Bob Costas, who served as NBC’s prime-time host for 12 Olympic Games from 1988 through 2016, lauded the IOC’s decision in an interview with CNN. “Common sense is not transphobic,” Costas told the left-leaning news network.

“If Caitlin Clark were to play in the NBA, everyone would applaud it,” Costas said. “That would be an incredible thing.

“But if the last guy on the bench of an NBA team went to play in the WNBA and started averaging 40 points a game, everyone would know that is B.S. … There is a reason why there are men’s and women’s sports, and why Title IX was one of the truly progressive pieces of legislation in the best sense of the word ‘progressive’ under the Nixon administration. It changed everything.”

Costas even blasted former NCAA swimming champion Will (aka Lia) Thomas.

“It doesn’t make any sense to have a swimmer who was the 472nd-ranked swimmer [nationally] when he was a man at [the University of Pennsylvania] either winning or coming close to winning against women a year and a half after transitioning,” the veteran broadcaster said.

He’s right—it doesn’t make sense. Which is why sports governing bodies in the United States at all levels, from the NCAA down to high school athletic associations, need to follow the IOC’s lead. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to make that mandatory this summer when it issues a highly anticipated ruling concerning laws aimed at protecting girls’ and women’s sports.

For now, though, it is enough that the IOC told the LGBTQ community, “No.” We can hope that it sparks a historic shift in the right direction.