CrossFit will allow transgender athletes to compete in its annual tournament, the CrossFit Games, starting next year, in a reversal of a policy that had subjected the global fitness brand to criticism from the LGBT community.

“This is the right thing to do,” CrossFit chair and founder Greg Glassman said in a statement on Friday. “CrossFit believes in the potential, capacity, and dignity of every athlete. We are proud of our LGBT community, including our transgender athletes, and we want you here with us.”

More than 415,000 people across the world participated in this year’s CrossFit Games season, which since 2007 has aimed to determine the “fittest on Earth.” Under the old policy, athletes were required to enter divisions according to their gender assigned at birth, a rule that has stirred up controversy for years.

CrossFit further enraged the LGBT community in June, when spokesperson Russell Berger tweeted that LGBT pride is a “sin” and expressed support for the cancellation of a Pride-themed workout at a CrossFit gym.

In response to public outrage over both incidents, the company, which has been called potentially “the gayest sport on the planet,” has insisted that it is inclusive. It condemned Berger’s tweets and fired him hours after he sent them.

“CrossFit admitted they’re wrong and is making it right,” Chloie Jönsson, a trans athlete from Reno, Nevada, told BuzzFeed News. In 2014, she sued CrossFit for banning her from competing in the women’s division.

Jönsson, 38, said she was surprised and delighted by the “overdue” policy change. “It’s huge for us. There’s no reason to hold any negative feelings toward CrossFit. I’m just stoked for all of my trans brothers and sisters that we have the chance to compete.”

Her lawsuit against the company, which sought $2.5 million in damages, was settled in 2015. At one point during the proceedings, a CrossFit lawyer had claimed that transgender women should compete in the men’s category because they were “genetically” male. As a letter to Jönsson’s lawyer put it at the time, according to CNN, “The fundamental, ineluctable fact is that a male competitor who has a sex reassignment procedure still has a genetic makeup that confers a physical and physiological advantage over women.”