​A few days before the Transgender Day of Visibility (31 March), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has taken a new step in the movement to ban transgender women from advanced levels of sport.   It is, of course, significant that the intended gene-screening testing will come into place for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, in line with Donald Trump's America's drive to exclude and erase transgender people at all levels.  More widely, it also reflects the determined efforts by right wing advocates to enhance further the backlash against transgender and gender diverse people.  Whilst I admit that I am not myself an expert on these matters, this will surely further damage the troubling trans and gender diverse health situation and encourage other unnecessary restrictions.  I also feel that more appropriate research and consultation is appropriate in particular sporting areas.  Yet, in the light of the recent review of existing scholarship on these matters (from 56 studies), as well as the extremely small representation of TGD people at high sporting levels, the IOC appears to be betraying reason as well as a hard-pressed community.   As the Brazilian review - Body Composition and Physical Fitness in Transgender Versus Cisgender Individuals - put it: 
 "While transgender women exhibited higher lean mass than cisgender women, their physical fitness was comparable...  Current evidence is mostly low certainty and has heterogeneous quality, but does not support theories of inherent athletic advantages for transgender women over cisgender women."
For more on Trans Health and Wellbeing in relation to sport, check out the Equality Australia/ACON fact sheet here