How many trans women athletes have competed in the Olympics?
Executive summary
As far as public reporting and compiled lists indicate, only one openly identified trans woman has competed in the Olympic Games: New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard at Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021) [1]. Reporting and databases distinguish a handful of openly trans or nonbinary Olympians overall, but most named cases at recent Games have been nonbinary athletes or trans men, and major outlets and specialist trackers consistently single out Hubbard as the sole openly trans woman Olympian to date [2] [1] [3].
1. A single, high‑profile case — Laurel Hubbard’s Olympic appearance
Laurel Hubbard’s entry in the weightlifting competition at Tokyo 2020 is the repeatedly cited, documented instance of an openly transgender woman competing at the Olympic level, and international coverage framed her participation as historic and contentious [1]. Forbes reported Hubbard as set to become the first openly transgender woman to compete in the Olympics, and subsequent coverage treated her as the exemplar when journalists and researchers catalogued transgender presence at recent Games [1].
2. Why counting gets complicated: nonbinary athletes and trans men are often conflated with “trans women” in public discourse
Multiple sources note that the broader category of LGBTQ+ Olympians expanded in Paris 2024 and Tokyo 2020, but many of the additional names were nonbinary (for example, Canadian soccer player Quinn) or trans men or para-athletes — categories distinct from “trans women” [4] [5] [3]. Specialist trackers such as TransAthlete and lists compiled after Paris identify three known transgender or nonbinary competitors at Paris 2024, but they differentiate nonbinary athletes (Nikki Hiltz, Quinn) from transgender women specifically, underscoring that those tallies are not counts of trans women competitors [2] [3].
3. Official policies and recordkeeping limit the public tally
The International Olympic Committee removed surgical and legal change requirements in 2015 and set hormone‑related criteria that affect eligibility, but the IOC does not publish a running roster of athletes by gender identity, and sports bodies set sport‑specific rules — a structural reason why reporters and researchers rely on athletes’ public self‑identification and media reporting to construct counts [6] [7]. That reliance means any published number of “trans women Olympians” reflects who has publicly disclosed a trans woman identity, not an exhaustive audit of every athlete’s private history [6].
4. What the trackers and outlets say: consensus and limits
Outsports, NBC, AP and other reporting focused on LGBTQ+ representation at recent Games show growing numbers of out athletes overall, but they emphasize that openly trans women remain vanishingly rare and that the few high‑profile transgender presences have been Hubbard (trans woman) and Quinn (nonbinary) among others [5] [4] [8]. Outsports explicitly notes that no out trans woman has won an Olympic medal and that Quinn is nonbinary rather than a trans woman, which aligns with the narrower count of trans women Olympians [8].
5. Caveats, alternative perspectives and the reality of undercounting
Publicly available reporting makes a strong case that Laurel Hubbard is the only openly identified trans woman who has competed at the Olympics, but reporters and researchers caution that any tally based on public self‑identification will undercount athletes who are not publicly out or whose identities are misreported; historical cases of gender controversies at the Games further complicate retrospective classification [1] [3]. Sources also show divergent emphases — some advocates stress inclusion and the small numbers involved, while critics focus on fairness debates tied to IOC and sport‑specific rules — making transparency about methods and the limits of public records essential when answering “how many” [6] [7].