Athletes and experts react to IOC’s ruling to ban transgender women from Olympic games

(NBC, KYMA) - Athletes and experts are reacting to the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) ruling which bans transgender women from the Olympic games.

The IOC's Executive Board decided Thursday that transgender women will, from here on, be excluded from Olympic competition.

"Fairness in women's sports should never be a partisan issue," said Marshi Smith, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women's Sports.

Those praising the decision, which is in line with the Trump Administration's executive order on women's sports, also cite rules passed prior to the 2024 games, where track and field, swimming, and cycling excluded transgender women.

"For the past 26 years now, we have had to question and doubt the integrity of the women's sports category at the highest level...the Olympic competition level," Smith expressed.

The IOC says it made the ruling, "To protect fairness in such sports and events, as well as safety particularly in contact sports, it is necessary and adequate to base eligibility for competition on biological sex."

But while an NBC affiliate in the Bay Area didn't hear back from some trans rights groups Thursday, ethics watchers say this is a very complicated issue.

"So you're trying to balance the commitment to human rights and the dignity to each person with fairness and justice...That's a difficult thing to do and to navigate," said Ann Skeet, Senior Director for Leadership Ethics for the Markkula Center.

It's not clear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at the Olympic level, and the IOC says no women assigned male at birth competed in 2024.