WTA Introduces Gene Testing for All Players on Women’s Tennis Tour
The new rule replaces the WTA's prior testosterone standard as several sports federations adopt similar sex-screening tests.
- On Sunday, the WTA announced a new eligibility policy requiring tennis players to clear a one-time SRY gene test to compete, with the requirement taking effect on Tuesday.
- Previously, the WTA permitted transgender women to participate if they declared their gender as female and maintained lowered testosterone levels for two years before competing.
- Other sports federations, including World Athletics and World Boxing, have introduced similar gene tests; in March, the International Olympic Committee ruled only biological female athletes are eligible for Olympic Games events.
- Martina Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam champion, and world number one Aryna Sabalenka support restricting transgender inclusion, while Billie Jean King argues exclusion amounts to discrimination, citing the 1973 "battle of the sexes."
- Critics of transgender inclusion argue that male puberty provides a musculo-skeletal advantage transition cannot mitigate, while transgender advocacy groups maintain that excluding these athletes constitutes discrimination.
126 Articles
126 Articles
Tennis is the first major women’s sports league to require genetic testing
The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has taken a step beyond most other women’s sports leagues by requiring genetic sex testing for female athletes. Despite being targeted at transgender women, this policy has the greatest potential to impact intersex cisgender women — especially because many of them don’t know they are intersex. There are no known trans women playing on the WTA Tour. But there are plenty of cis women who will now have to go thr…
The WTA has made the choice to exclude transgender athletes from its female tennis competitions. The body has changed its provisions on this issue by updating a text during this month of July 2026....
By introducing from Tuesday a unique mandatory genetic test for all players, the women's tennis body is based on the IOC directive, itself modelled on a Trump decree, which made it a condition for participating in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
The World Women's Tennis Organisation has formalized the introduction of a new competition eligibility policy, in the broadest context of the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
The WTA, the governing body of women's tennis, announced on Tuesday the implementation of a standardized genetic test for all players on the circuit to determine their biological sex. This is a requirement for participation in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
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