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WNBA player Brianna Turner opposed the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) new policies barring biological males from competing in female sports, claiming that they do "anything but" protect women.
"The IOC has a documented history of refusing to actually protect women in elite sports, and their current invocation of protection does anything but," Turner wrote in a USA Today op-ed Friday.
The IOC announced in March that, starting with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, it would be adopting a new policy limiting female category events to biologically female athletes as determined by genetic testing.
WNBA player Brianna Turner wrote an op-ed for USA Today criticizing the new Olympics policy of limiting female events to biological women. (Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images/Reuters)
Turner accused the IOC of using the new policies to "scapegoat" transgender athletes while ignoring "real" issues regarding women in sports.
"Policies that single out transgender women and athletes with intersex variations do not protect women’s sports. They manufacture a scapegoat while the real challenges to women’s sports go unaddressed: unequal funding, limited access to training and facilities, pay disparities, male-dominated leadership, gender-based violence and harassment across race, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity," Turner said.
She also denied the IOC's argument that the new policy is being enacted to make sure that female sports are safe and fair, claiming there were no biological advantages in transgender athletes.
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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced a new policy regarding transgender athletes in March. (Laurent Gillieron/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
"In more than 15 years of organized basketball, I’ve played with and against people who are transgender and undoubtedly people with intersex variations, and I've never experienced any unfair advantages. I saw these players as my fellow athletes, not my enemies," Turner wrote.
She concluded by demanding that the IOC do not use women athletes in efforts to "shame or exclude" transgender athletes.
"Do not use the names of women athletes to target, shame or exclude transgender women. Transgender women are women. Women with intersex variations are women. I welcome these women—and all women—onto my teams," Turner wrote. "If we really want to protect the integrity of sport, let’s invest in fairness, opportunity and safety for every athlete. Let’s build a future where sport belongs to everyone."
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Other female athletes have criticized the IOC's new policy and claimed that it was not based on science. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly, File)
Fox News Digital reached out to the IOC for comment.
WNBA legend Sue Bird also claimed earlier this month on the "A Touch More" podcast that the new IOC policy was "fearmongering" and "not solving a problem that exists."
In the same podcast, former U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe pushed back on the idea that the Olympics policy was based on science.
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"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.
