Scott Gleeson, and Erik Brady

USA TODAY

Bruce Jenner won a gold medal in the decathlon 40 years ago at the Montreal Games. Today, as Caitlyn Jenner, she is the world’s most famous transgender woman. But she couldn’t have competed as Caitlyn in the pentathlon in 1976.

New guidelines that went into effect this year make it increasingly possible — and, according to several experts, even likely — that the Rio Games could offer the first openly transgender Olympians.

The International Olympic Committee held a meeting in May about transgender issues in which members of an international sports federation said two closeted transgender athletes who competed in their sport were considering coming out publicly before the Games this summer, according to two people who attended the meeting and spoke to USA TODAY Sports.

The people were Joanna Harper, chief medical physicist of radiation oncology at Providence Portland (Ore.) Medical Center, and Joshua Safer, medical director for the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Boston Medical Center.

The nationalities of the transgender athletes were not revealed at the meeting, according to Harper and Safer. Harper adds that the athletes may not make it to Rio or could choose to remain closeted.

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The meeting was attended by representatives of the World Anti-Doping Agency and federations for sports including track, boxing, fencing, rugby, tennis, weightlifting, women's soccer and wrestling.

"It's not a matter of if there will be a transgender (Olympian), but when," says Myron Genel, professor emeritus and endocrinologist at Yale School of Medicine who also attended the meeting.

Emmanuelle Moreau, IOC head of media relations, tells USA TODAY Sports, "We have no formal knowledge of such cases."

The meeting was a follow-up to the IOC's November meeting that led to the January changes in guidelines. Under the new guidelines, those who transition from female to male are eligible to compete without restriction and those who transition from male to female are eligible to compete without gender reassignment surgery and with one year of hormone therapy. The old guidelines, from 2004, required surgery and two years of hormone therapy.

“The flash point for a lot of people is, ‘You’re going to allow penises in women’s sports?’ ” Harper says. “It’s not the anatomy that matters, it’s the hormones.”

The new guidelines, which also require certain specified low levels of testosterone, reflect changing attitudes globally. As one IOC document puts it: “To require surgical anatomical changes as a pre-condition to participation is not necessary to preserve fair competition and may be inconsistent with developing legislation and notions of human rights.”

LGBT activist and journalist Charley Walters says the sports world is slowly moving with society. “We’re seeing the dawn of the trans movement,” he says. “The community has taken leaps and bounds in the athletic arena. There has been backlash, but people are aware and talking about it.”

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Harper is an expert on transgender and intersex studies who identifies as a transgender woman. She says she is pleased by another IOC change: Trans athletes no longer are required to change the genders listed on their birth certificates. In many countries, she says, that’s not possible to do.

“The very first transgender Olympian, which will likely be a transgender woman, is going to face enormous opposition,” Harper says. “This individual will need to be tough-minded, strong and able to withstand criticism.

“If there are two (transgender athletes) who come out at the same time, the burden will certainly be lessened.”

Chris Mosier, a transgender male athlete, made history this summer by competing in the World Duathlon Championships. (Duathlon is not an Olympic sport; triathlon is.) The IOC adopted its new guideline after Mosier challenged the IOC’s rules for transgender athletes, which were the same as the International Triathlon Union rules under which Mosier competes.

“Hopefully, now that some doors are open, it will encourage the younger generation of athletes to be who they really are,” says Mosier, who counsels transgender athletes as executive director of Go! Athletes. On top of the emotional hurdles that accompany gender dysphoria, he says, those in the transgender community have a coming-out process that makes it especially difficult to be their true selves at an early age in sports.

“I think most people forget about the ‘T’ in LGBT,” says Mosier, who was the first transgender to pose in ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue. “When gay and bisexual athletes come out, they have to worry about: ‘Will my teammates and everyone accept me? What will fans think?’ At the pro level, mainly smaller Olympic sports, there’s, ‘Will I be able to get sponsors?’ Transgender people have to worry about all that —and also if the rules will allow us to play.”

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G Ryan, a genderqueer athlete who competes on the women's swimming team at Michigan and competed in the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, does not identify as male or female, but competes as a female athlete and prefers “they/them/theirs” as pronouns to be described as a person.

“I identify as genderqueer individual, so I’m both in the trans realm and the non-binary realm,” Ryan says. “I’m under the trans umbrella. I don’t see myself as either a man or a woman. I’m somewhere in between. It’s not just about two options. There’s another space and another spectrum where I feel like myself.”

Sport only offers two options. “I represent the women’s team” at Michigan, Ryan says. “I want nothing more than to see my team succeed and do well. Though, in the back of my head, I feel like I’m posing or impersonating someone.”

Ryan understands the concerns over a level playing field when male athletes are transitioning to female athletes: “I don’t think including trans athletes competing would hinder the sport’s fairness. It shouldn’t be looked at that way. That’s what’s on the surface.”

Harper says opponents to lifting the surgery requirements suggest that “now many men will be masquerading as trans women to get into the Olympics.” Harper thinks that should not be a concern. “Please,” she says, “that’s not going to happen.”

Ryan believes it is important that the world see trans Olympians, whether it is in Rio or someday soon.

“I think one of the things that’s necessary is time,” Ryan says. “Nothing changes overnight. You can’t force people to accept something if they don’t understand it. A lot of education about the trans community, a very diverse community, is a missing piece. As people understand more about genders and the in-between, the more we can adapt.”

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When Caitlyn Jenner came out as a transgender woman, interest was high around the globe. That was partly because she was already well known through her connection with the Kardashians, but also because she’d once been known as the world’s greatest athlete by virtue of Olympic glory.

Ryan thinks trans Olympians, when their day comes, will have a similar power to command attention.

“People of all different identities all over the world are in the Olympics and watch the Olympics,” Ryan says. “If you can’t see something, it’s very easy to pretend it doesn’t exist. If you can’t see trans athletes competing at a high level, it’s easy to think they’re not fast enough, or good enough, and push away the issue of addressing inclusion.

“The power of seeing” — and here Ryan pauses, throat full of emotion — “seeing is believing.”

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