Project B adopts Olympic rules for the women's competition: SRY test becomes the new standard from Los Angeles 2028
Global basketball platform Project B, headquartered in Singapore, has decided to follow the International Olympic Committee and FIBA rules on sex eligibility for athletes in its women's competition. The decision comes several months after the IOC adopted its new Policy on the Protection of the Female Category in Olympic Sport on March 26, 2026, which will apply from the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games onward. Under IOC rules, participation in the women's category at events under its jurisdiction is restricted to athletes who meet the criterion of biological female sex, with the initial screening based on a one-time test for the presence of the SRY gene. Project B confirmed to Front Office Sports that, as an international competition, it intends to follow the standards of the IOC and the world basketball federation in order, according to the league's explanation, to provide players and other stakeholders with consistent and predictable rules. In doing so, the new organization has entered one of the most sensitive and contentious debates in contemporary women's sport even before the start of its inaugural season.
Project B is not merely another national basketball competition. The organization presents itself as a global platform seeking to connect elite men's and women's basketball, athlete equity ownership, international competitions and content distribution focused on digital platforms. In an official announcement from July 2026, Project B stated that the organization is headquartered in Singapore and that the project will launch in 2027, while Front Office Sports reported that the competition is planned to begin in January. Among the names already announced for the women's side of the project are well-known WNBA players, including Nneka Ogwumike, Jonquel Jones and Sophie Cunningham. That is precisely why the eligibility policy carries broader significance: this is a league that, from the outset, is attempting to attract international stars and position itself as a new major player in professional basketball.
What exactly the IOC's new policy stipulates
The IOC adopted the new policy after the work of an expert group and stated that its objective is to protect fairness, safety and integrity in the women's category. The rule applies to individual and team sports at the Olympic Games and other IOC events, but it is not retroactive and does not apply to recreational or grassroots sport. According to the IOC's official explanation, the first step in determining eligibility is testing for the presence of the SRY gene, which is typically found on the Y chromosome and is associated with initiating male sexual development. The test may be performed using a saliva sample, an inner-cheek swab or blood, and the IOC describes it as a relatively non-invasive method of screening. An athlete who tests negative for SRY, unless there is reason to suspect a testing error, permanently satisfies that part of the eligibility criteria and generally does not need to be tested again.
Athletes who test positive for SRY are, under IOC policy, generally ineligible for the women's category at Olympic events. The document nevertheless provides for rare medically defined exceptions, including certain cases of complete androgen insensitivity and other rare differences or disorders of sex development in which, according to IOC criteria, there is no advantage from the anabolic or performance-related effects of testosterone. The IOC also states that athletes who do not meet the criteria for the women's category may compete in other categories for which they are eligible, for example the men's or an open category if the relevant sport provides for one. The new policy is therefore not simply a rule concerning gender identity, but a system that the IOC explicitly links to biological sex and the outcome of genetic screening. This represents a major shift from the IOC's previous 2021 framework, under which international federations had considerably greater latitude to determine their own rules.
An important practical detail is that Project B's decision to follow the IOC and FIBA does not yet mean that the league has publicly released its own detailed testing protocol. Front Office Sports reported that Project B did not answer the question of whether its players would be required to undergo genetic testing as a direct condition of participation. FIBA, when adopting the Olympic standard, also emphasized that it is awaiting further IOC guidance on the practical, legal and operational aspects of implementation. In other words, the policy direction has been established, but a number of questions concerning how tests will be administered, the protection of health data, the appeals process and recognition of previously completed tests still need to be precisely defined. These details will be decisive when the rules move from general principles into the everyday practice of professional competitions.
FIBA adopts the rule for the Olympic Games, but not yet for all its competitions
The world basketball federation has taken a more nuanced position than immediately and fully extending the Olympic rule across the entire international calendar. At a meeting of the FIBA Central Board in Berlin in April 2026, it was confirmed that the federation would follow the IOC policy at the Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games. At the same time, FIBA recalled that in December 2024 it had decided to extend by two years the review process for its own formal policy on transgender athlete eligibility in competitions that it organizes itself. During that period, FIBA says, basketball-specific data and additional expert evidence related to the issue are being collected. A special sex eligibility committee, composed of medical and legal experts, is expected to submit recommendations to the Central Board in early 2027.
Until then, according to the official announcement, FIBA is not considering applications for transgender athlete eligibility in its competitions. This wording shows that international basketball does not yet have a single unified regime that would automatically apply to every club and national-team competition under the FIBA umbrella. For Olympic basketball, the path is clear because the IOC framework applies, while for other competitions the final decision will depend on the completion of the expert analysis. Project B, however, has decided not to wait for that process to conclude, but instead to align itself in advance with the Olympic direction and FIBA's application of it at the world's largest multisport event. In doing so, the organization is attempting to avoid a situation in which the rules become a matter of improvisation after the competition has already begun.
Alana Beard criticizes the WNBA's lack of clarity
Project B co-founder and chief basketball officer Alana Beard, a former WNBA player, linked her organization's decision to the current debate in the best-known American women's professional league. Speaking to Front Office Sports, she criticized WNBA leadership for, in her view, failing to take a sufficiently clear position as the debate over transgender athletes increasingly moves beyond the boundaries of sport. Beard said that accountability, integrity and intention are particularly important at a moment that could have a major impact on the future of the sport. Project B presents its policy precisely as an attempt to ensure that the rules are known before a specific dispute over a player's eligibility arises. Such a strategy has both competitive and communication dimensions, as the new league is also seeking to distinguish itself from the established WNBA.
The debate in the WNBA intensified during the summer of 2026, particularly after public comments by Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever. In an interview with ESPN, Cunningham supported restricting the participation of transgender girls and women in women's sports, prompting support from part of the public but also criticism from transgender-rights activists and some players and coaches. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve publicly defended the right of transgender children to participate in sports, while the WNBPA said in August that it rejects hatred, abuse and the demonization of any group, including transgender people. It therefore became clear that there is no single position within professional basketball on how the issue should be regulated. The differences concern not only the final rule, but also whether priority should be given to biological criteria, inclusion, individual assessment or a combination of different approaches.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent teams a memorandum on August 7 announcing further discussions with team presidents and general managers. According to a document obtained by the Associated Press, Engelbert described the issue as complex and nuanced and stressed that the league would discuss it with teams and the players' union in the weeks and months ahead. She particularly emphasized that eligibility rules in the WNBA are subject to collective bargaining, meaning the league cannot unilaterally change them in the same manner as an international governing body. The current collective bargaining agreement states that only players who are women may play in the WNBA, but it does not contain more detailed criteria related to gender identity or sex assigned at birth. According to reports by Front Office Sports and the Associated Press, no transgender woman who was assigned male at birth has played in the WNBA to date.
Genetic testing creates a clear boundary, but also scientific questions
The IOC bases its decision on the position that the presence of the SRY gene is a highly reliable indicator of male sexual development and that a simple one-time screening provides a practical and uniform criterion for all Olympic sports. Such a model removes previous differences between sports that used testosterone thresholds, assessments of puberty or sport-specific federation rules. Supporters of a strictly defined women's category argue that a uniform biological criterion reduces legal and sporting uncertainty, particularly at the elite level, where small physiological differences can have a major competitive effect. This is precisely the logic Project B cites when it speaks about consistency and trust among players and other participants. For a league that is still building its identity, having a rule known before its first official competition may be more important than resolving each case individually after the fact.
However, the use of an SRY test is not without scientific criticism. Professor Andrew Sinclair of Australia's Murdoch Children's Research Institute, one of the scientists who identified the human SRY gene in 1990, warned as early as 2025, during debate over a similar rule in athletics, that the presence of the gene alone does not describe the entire process of sexual development. Sinclair noted that genetic variations can result in situations in which a person has XY chromosomes or the SRY gene, but the development of sexual characteristics proceeds differently from the usual pattern. Such rare cases are one of the reasons why the IOC policy also includes medical exceptions. The debate therefore concerns not only whether the women's category should have a biological criterion, but also how accurately a single genetic marker can encompass all medically complex cases.
The handling of rare differences of sex development is likely to be one of the most sensitive aspects of implementation. The IOC has provided for the possibility of exceptions for certain conditions, but every such decision involves medical documentation, expert assessment and the protection of extremely sensitive personal data. In addition to sports law, issues of privacy, genetics, medical ethics and the right of appeal also come into play. International leagues seeking to apply the Olympic model will therefore have to establish reliable procedures that do not publicly disclose athletes' health information. Project B has not yet published the details of such a mechanism, so only future regulations will show how it intends to transform its in-principle acceptance of the IOC standard into an operational system.
Project B wants to establish the rules before the first season
For Project B, the decision comes at a time of intensive development of its sporting and business model. During 2026, the organization continued expanding its management structure, bringing in experienced basketball figures and emphasizing that it wants to develop an international ecosystem that includes elite competition and player development. In July, for example, Igor Kokoškov, a former NBA coach and national-team coach who won EuroBasket 2017 with Slovenia, was appointed head of player development. In the same official announcement, Project B described itself as a Singapore-based platform combining elite competition, athlete ownership and global content distribution. Such a profile shows that the decision on the rules governing the women's category is not an isolated administrative move, but part of an effort to define the organization's key standards before launch.
As of August 16, 2026, the most important fact remains that the IOC and Project B have chosen a clear direction, while FIBA follows the same framework for Olympic competitions but is still conducting expert analysis for its other competitions. The WNBA, meanwhile, has not adopted a comparable detailed biological criterion and continues discussions within the collective bargaining system. As a result, 2027 will be a crucial year for basketball: FIBA is expected to receive recommendations from its expert committee early in the year, Project B plans to begin competition, and the WNBA will have to decide whether to further clarify its current eligibility wording. What until a few years ago was largely a matter for individual international federations is now becoming one of the central regulatory issues in women's professional sport. The way different organizations balance sporting fairness, inclusion, medical complexity and legal enforceability could shape the rules far beyond basketball in the long term.
Sources:
- International Olympic Committee - policy on the protection of the female category, rules on one-time SRY testing and medical exceptions (link)
- International Olympic Committee - official questions and answers on the application of the new policy, the scope of the rules and implementation issues (link)
- FIBA - Central Board decision on applying the IOC policy at the Olympic Games and continuing expert analysis for other FIBA competitions (link)
- Front Office Sports - confirmation of Project B's adoption of IOC and FIBA guidelines, statements by Alana Beard and information on the WNBA's approach (link)
- Associated Press / ABC News - Commissioner Cathy Engelbert's memorandum, collective bargaining over eligibility rules and WNBPA reactions (link)
- Business Wire / Project B - official information on the organization's headquarters in Singapore, its 2027 launch and the development of a global basketball platform (link)
- Murdoch Children's Research Institute - Professor Andrew Sinclair's expert explanation of the limitations of SRY testing and the complexity of sexual development (link)