Sport & Rights Alliance urges WTA to reconsider sex-testing policy for female players
The Sport & Rights Alliance on August 13, 2026 urged the Women’s Tennis Association to reconsider its new sex-testing policy for female players on the women’s tour, warning the measure could stigmatise competitors. The group described the policy as discriminatory and said it could cause harm to women and girls.
The WTA introduced the policy last month, requiring a one-time genetic screening for the SRY gene, which is associated with biological sex determination. The test can be carried out via a cheek swab or a blood sample and is required for eligibility to compete in WTA tournaments. The association has said the screening will include confidentiality and data-privacy safeguards.
The change departs from the WTA’s previous rules under which transgender women could compete after declaring their gender as female and maintaining testosterone levels below the prescribed threshold for two years. Reuters reported in July that there were no known transgender women competing at any level of professional tennis at the time. The new requirement has divided opinion among leading players.
Andrea Florence, executive director of the Sport & Rights Alliance, criticised the policy’s impact on players and backed the call for reconsideration, saying: “The WTA can claim it does not intend to cause harm, but good intentions will never erase the stigmatisation and trauma that women and girls will suffer due to sex testing.”
World No.1 Aryna Sabalenka has publicly backed the move, asserting that biological differences justify separate categories for competitive fairness. “I think it's really important to keep the fairness in our tour,” Sabalenka said at the Canadian Open. “It's obviously, biologically, men are way stronger than women, so I feel like it would be not really fair for the woman to compete against biological man.”
Coco Gauff, meanwhile, said she understood the reasoning behind protecting fairness in women’s sport but was concerned the policy could create hostility towards the transgender community. The controversy follows the International Olympic Committee’s March decision that biological female athletes must have their sex determined through a one-time test to compete in women’s events at the Olympics.
The Sport & Rights Alliance said the WTA’s stated confidentiality and data-privacy safeguards do not address its central concerns, putting further pressure on the WTA to reconsider a policy that has already become one of the most contentious issues in women’s tennis.