On March 26, the International Olympic Committee made an announcement that is simultaneously surprising and banal. The IOC declared that only women are eligible to participate in women's events in the Olympics. Of course, saying that women's events are limited to women is as newsworthy as a declaration that water is wet.

The importance of the IOC's decision is far broader than participation in the Olympics, which, after all, involves a miniscule percentage of the population. Rather, it is yet another reminder that the human person is created male and female, with significant physiological differences between the two.

In one sense, the IOC is merely catching up with other international athletics governing bodies. For example, in 2023, governing bodies for the Union Cycliste International (governing bicycle competitions), World Aquatics and World Athletics (governing track and field) had already restricted women's events to biological women and biological men who had transitioned before going through male puberty.

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But the problem of males participating in female athletics is not limited to international events. In 2022 in the United States, for example, a "trans identifying" man won the women's NCAA swimming championship in the women's 500 meters. In 2019, a male athlete at a university in New Hampshire, won a track and field NCAA championship in the women's division.

Similarly, boys have won high school athletic events in the girls' division in the states of Connecticut, Maine, Washington, California, Minnesota and others. This is only possible because these states have deliberately determined that boys may compete in girls' sports. Of course, this is tantamount to eliminating the girls' category altogether.

To remedy the injustice of forcing girls to compete against boys, about 27 states in the U.S. have preceded the IOC in banning boys from competing against girls.

In early 2026, the United States Supreme Court heard an important case testing these laws, and it is likely to uphold them. This decision may protect states' laws that guard the integrity and safety of girls' athletics, but it would be unlikely to compel those states that do not. Thus, in the latter States, the injustice of forcing girls to compete against boys, and the perversion of results and records, will likely continue.

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These issues are not merely about athletics, of course, which in the big scheme of things are far less important than many other social institutions. But the controversies around sports are proxies for the larger issue of the nature of the human person, created as either male or female. "Male and female (God) created them," says Genesis 1:27.

There's no third sex; and one sex cannot become the other, regardless of how a person presents or "identifies." This is not to deny certain areas of confusion over sex and gender. But the confusions should not be the basis of social policy.

There are broadly speaking two actual categories of the debate over male participation in women's sports.

First, some people, especially adolescents and teenagers, experience authentic body dysmorphia, which is a psychological/behavioral issue, akin to bulimia and anorexia, for example. These people should be treated with dignity and compassion while being helped to overcome their confusion. A recent study in Finland has strongly suggested that surgical and hormonal intervention in such cases exacerbates rather than alleviates the psychological and psychiatric stress of such persons.

Second, some males -- every human being with a Y chromosome -- experience disorders of sexual development, or DSD. These are men with identical testosterone profiles as men without DSD. They produce just as much testosterone on average as men with normal development of sexual organs. But men with variations of DSD either do not develop typical male sexual organs or exhibit ambiguous genitalia.

These are tragic cases, as are any abnormalities in embryonic development. And, again, such people should be treated with dignity and compassion as they work through the social implications of this disorder. But these tragic cases are not a legitimate reason to deny women athletics opportunities. For purposes of the physiological advantages, persons with XY DSD disorders are no different from any other person with a Y chromosome.

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Gender ideology is on retreat in many aspects of social life. Sports are not the most important venue of the problem. But they are something of a bellwether. Measures like those of IOC and similar organizations are indications of cautious optimism that gender ideology may soon yield its ascendent grip on social institutions, and thus, girls and women will be restored to equality.

Kenneth Craycraft is a professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary's Seminary and School of Theology in Cincinnati