Players will need to take a test \u200bfor the SRY gene, which helps to determine biological sex, the WTA says.<\/p>\n
Published On 20 Jul 202620 Jul 2026<\/p>\n
Tennis players will be required to clear a one-time gene test to compete on the women\u2019s tour, the \u2060Women\u2019s Tennis Association (WTA) said after updating its eligibility policy.<\/p>\n
The WTA said on Sunday that the once-in-a-lifetime test for the SRY gene, which helps to determine biological sex, can be conducted via a \u2060cheek swab or blood test, with the new policy coming into effect on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The previous WTA policy permitted transgender women to participate if they declared their gender as female and then maintained a lowered testosterone level for a period of two years before competing.<\/p>\n
There are no known transgender \u200cwomen currently active at any level of professional tennis.<\/p>\n
\u201cEligibility to participate in WTA tournaments will be confirmed through a required, one-time screening process for the SRY gene,\u201d a WTA spokesperson told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayer screening will begin in 2026, following all appropriate confidentiality and data privacy safeguards and concurrent with a comprehensive player engagement program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe WTA recognises that this is a sensitive and complex issue and is committed to treating all players with dignity \u2060and implementing the policy in a respectful and thoughtful way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transgender player \u2060Renee Richards competed on the women\u2019s professional tour from 1977 to 1981, before coaching the tennis great and gay rights trailblazer Martina Navratilova. Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion, has been an outspoken critic of the inclusion \u2060of transgender athletes in sport, while world number one Aryna Sabalenka last year said it would be unfair for women to face transgender players.<\/p>\n
Others, \u2060such as Billie Jean King \u2013 the 12-time Grand Slam \u2060singles champion who won the original \u201cbattle of the sexes\u201d in 1973 \u2013 see transgender exclusion as discrimination.<\/p>\n
Several sport federations, including World Athletics and World Boxing, have introduced similar gene tests in recent years.<\/p>\n
In March, the International Olympic \u200cCommittee said that only biological female athletes whose gender has been determined by a one-time test would be eligible to take part in female category events at the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
Transgender advocacy \u200cgroups \u200csay that excluding transgender athletes amounts to discrimination.<\/p>\n
Critics of transgender inclusion say that going through male puberty imbues athletes with a musculoskeletal advantage that transition does not mitigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Players will need to take a test \u200bfor the SRY gene, which helps to determine biological sex, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[50,217,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-701149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}