An athlete could face one eligibility standard in athletics, another in swimming and another in a different sport.
The IOC's new framework represents an effort to establish a clearer position for Olympic competition.
However, it has not ended the debate.
Instead, it has moved the disagreement toward questions about implementation, testing, privacy, fairness and the treatment of athletes with differences in sex development.
Tennis Has Become Part of the Debate
The issue has particular relevance to Navratilova because tennis has historically maintained separate men's and women's competitions.
In 2026, the Women's Tennis Association introduced a one-time SRY gene test requirement for female players, bringing tennis into the wider international debate over biological eligibility. Reuters reported that the policy was intended to establish eligibility for women's competition and was influenced by the broader changes taking place in international sport.
The response among players has not been completely uniform.
Some prominent athletes have expressed support for protecting the integrity of women's competition while also criticizing the way the issue has been discussed publicly.
Two-time Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff, for example, supported the principle of fairness in women's sports but also expressed concern that the debate could contribute to hostility toward transgender people.
This illustrates why the issue cannot easily be reduced to a simple conflict between "fairness" and "inclusion."
Many athletes may support one principle without rejecting the other.
The difficult question is how sports organizations should balance them when they appear to conflict.
Is Hormone Therapy Enough to Remove Athletic Differences?
This is perhaps the most scientifically complicated aspect of the discussion.
Navratilova and other advocates of sex-based categories argue that hormone therapy cannot completely reverse the physical development associated with male puberty.
That argument is based on the idea that puberty can affect multiple physiological systems simultaneously, including skeletal structure, muscle development and cardiovascular characteristics.
But describing these changes as entirely "irreversible" can oversimplify the evidence.
Some characteristics can change substantially following hormone treatment. Muscle mass, strength and body composition can decrease, for example. Other characteristics may be less responsive to hormonal changes.
The degree of retained advantage may also depend on the sport.
A policy designed for elite weightlifting may not necessarily make sense in exactly the same form for precision shooting, equestrian sport or other disciplines where physiological demands are different.
This is one reason sporting federations have historically developed sport-specific regulations.
The current international debate is therefore not simply about whether transgender athletes possess advantages. It is also about how large those advantages are, whether they remain after transition, and whether they are relevant enough to affect competitive fairness in a particular discipline.
The Question of Safety
Navratilova has also connected the issue to safety, particularly in sports where physical contact is involved.
This argument is more straightforward in sports such as boxing, rugby or combat sports than it is in tennis.
Tennis does not involve direct physical collisions between opponents in the same way.
Nevertheless, the broader principle of protecting athletes from potentially significant physical disparities has become part of international policy discussions.