United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to bar transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
Under the order signed on Wednesday, federal government funding will be denied to educational institutes that allow trans girls and women to participate in female sports and use female locker rooms.
The order also directs government agencies to promote sex-based female sports categories at international organisations and convene representatives of major athletic organisations and governing bodies to promote “policies that are fair and safe, in the best interests of female athletes”.
“We are putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice: If you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” Trump said, referring to a 1972 law that bars sex discrimination in education.
Declaring an end to “the war on women’s sport”, Trump said his administration would not “stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes”.
“We’re just not going to let it happen, and it’s going to end, and it’s ending right now and no nobody is going to be able to do a damn thing about it because when I speak, we speak with authority.”
Trump also said he would push the International Olympic Committee, which has left the issue of trans people’s participation in sport to international governing bodies, to explicitly endorse sex-based participation before the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
“We want them to change everything having to do with the Olympics and having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject,” the US president said.
Trans women’s participation in sport has been a lightning rod in the US culture wars in recent years, though the number of athletes involved is small.
National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) president, Charlie Baker, told a US Senate panel in December that he knew of fewer than 10 trans people competing among the 520,000 athletes at colleges nationwide.
Opinion polls have suggested growing public opposition to trans women competing amid high-profile controversies involving athletes, such as college swimmer Lia Thomas, who won the NCAA Division I national championship in 2022 before being barred from women’s events by World Aquatics.
In a 2023 Gallup poll, 69 percent of Americans said trans athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that align with their sex, a seven-point rise compared with 2021.
Baker, NCAA president, welcomed Trump’s order for setting a “clear, national standard”.
“We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions,” Baker said in a statement.
“The NCAA Board of Governors is reviewing the executive order and will take necessary steps to align NCAA policy in the coming days, subject to further guidance from the administration,” he added.
“The Association will continue to help foster welcoming environments on campuses for all student-athletes.”
Athlete Ally, an LGBTQ advocacy group, said it was saddened that trans youth would “no longer be able to know the joy of playing sports as their full and authentic selves.”
“We’ve known this day was likely to occur for a long time, as this administration continues to pursue simple solutions to complex issues, often resulting in animus towards the most marginalized communities in our country,” the group said in a statement.
“Despite this executive order, we will continue to choose love, acceptance and curiosity with anyone interested in creating a future of sports where everyone belongs. We will continue to work with sporting bodies to expand access to the life-saving power of sports whenever and wherever possible.”
GLADD, one of the biggest LGBTQ rights organisations in the US, condemned Trump’s order as “inaccurate and incoherent”.
“All women and girls, including transgender women and girls, should be welcome to play sports if they want, make decisions about their own bodies, be hired for jobs they are qualified for, and be free from lawless attacks by extremists in elected office,” the group said in a statement.
“Anti-LGBTQ politicians with a record of abusing and silencing women and stripping their health care have zero credibility in any conversation about protecting women and girls.”
Trump has signed four executive orders directed at trans people since his January 20 inauguration, including a proclamation to only recognise two sexes, a ban on trans people from serving openly in the military, and an order defunding gender transitions for people under age 19.
