President Trump signed an executive order to ban transgender girls and women from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. The measure, according to White House officials, is called the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order.” Trump said from a podium at the White House, with dozens of women and girls standing behind him: “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”
Wednesday’s order — titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” — coincides with National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and will involve how his administration will interpret Title IX, the law best known for its role in pursuing gender equity in athletics and preventing sexual harassment on campuses. The order mandates that Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools, be interpreted as prohibiting the participation of transgender girls and women in female sports. Those not in compliance jeopardize any federal funding they receive and could face legal action, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt adding at Wednesday’s press briefing: “The policy of this administration is that there are only two sexes — male and female. Pretty simple.”
The White House official said transgender female athletes can compete on co-ed or male teams, and have argued that transgender girls and women athletes have biological advantages that are unfair and unsafe for other girls and women: “This is about preserving women’s sports for women, and that if you are not a woman, you should absolutely have opportunities in sports, but the burden should not always be on women to accommodate that.”
The executive order follows a Republican measure that passed the House last month, known as the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which would amend Title IX to recognize a person’s “sex” as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Schools that allow “a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls” risk losing federal funding.
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