Trump Signs Executive Order Banning Transgender Athletes from Women’s Sports, Directing DOJ to Enforce

Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, fulfilling a promise that was at the center of his 2024 campaign.

Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” at an afternoon signing ceremony in the East Room, surrounded by dozens of women and some young girls in athletic uniforms.

“With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” the president said.

The order is two-pronged, leaning on compliance with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities that receive funding from the federal government, as well as federal engagement with the private sector.

Trump’s latest measure comes as his administration has already sought to target transgender rights through executive action, some of which is already facing legal challenges.

Ahead of the signing, a White House official said that the new action will take the opposite position on Title IX from the Biden administration, which established a rule that schools are violating Title IX when they ban transgender students from participating on sports teams.

The Trump administration’s position on Title IX, the official said, is “if you’re going to have women’s sports, if you’re going to provide opportunities for women, then they have to be equally safe, equally fair, and equally private opportunities, and so that means that you’re going to preserve women’s sports for women.”

Some critics of transgender athletes claim they have an unfair advantage in sports, but that’s not what the research shows.

While research is limited and ongoing, a 2017 review in the peer-reviewed journal Sports Medicine found “no direct or consistent research” showing trans people have an athletic advantage.

A more recent October 2023 review of the research concluded that sex differences do develop following puberty, but many are “reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.” Physical attributes that could work in a trans girls’ favor, like height or limb length, for example, appear to be “less malleable,” the study said, but it also pointed out that there are no efforts to restrict cisgender athletes who are taller than average or exceptionally gifted physically in any other way.

The White House official indicated that the administration will consider additional guidance, regulations and interpretations of Title IX, and will also push for investigations of schools that are not seen to be in compliance by the Department of Education. Schools that are not in compliance, the official later warned, are “putting their federal funding in jeopardy vis a vis the US government.”

Trump has been advocating for dismantling the Department of Education. If that endeavor is successful, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the administration “will look at additional maneuvers to ensure that these very important policies can be implemented.”

The Trump administration also believes it has a “role to play” with sporting bodies, the official said, and plans to bring sporting organizations to the White House to “listen to the stories of female athletes and their parents.”

Additionally, Trump “does expect the Olympic Committee and the NCAA to no longer allow men to compete in women’s sports,” Leavitt said.

While Trump does not have legal authority over the International Olympic Committee or National Collegiate Athletics Association, Leavitt said the executive action “starts a very public pressure campaign on these organizations.”

“He expects these organizations to comply with this federal executive order,” she said.

In his remarks on Wednesday, Trump said he has instructed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “make clear to the International Olympic Committees … that America categorically rejects transgender lunacy.”

And there are plans to convene state attorneys general to enforce “laws on the books protecting women’s sports” at the state level, the official said. Trump on Wednesday is expected to meet with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who in 2023 signed a state law banning trans athletes in college sports in his state.

Rubio, the official added, will be using bodies like the United Nations to promote the administration’s stance through reports on gender issues.

The executive action also calls for a review of visa policies: “If you are coming into the country and you are claiming that you are a woman, but you are a male here to compete against women, we’re going to be reviewing that for fraud,” the official said.

via: CNN

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