Donald Trump signs executive order banning trans women athletes from competing in female sports
Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning trans women athletes from competing in female sports.
The move is designed to prevent people who were biologically assigned male at birth from participating in certain sporting events, including those at school.
The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”, will call for “immediate enforcement” against schools and athletic associations that deny women single-sex sports and single-sex changing rooms.
It also coincides with National Girls and Women in Sports Day and it marks another notable shift in the way the federal government treats transgender people under Mr Trump.
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Ahead of signing the order, Mr Trump said: “From now on women’s sports will be only for women.
“We’ve gotten the woke lunacy out of our military and now we’re getting it out of women’s sports.”
He also spoke about the coming Olympics and World Cup which the US is hosting, and said he wouldn’t allow any transgender athletes to compete.
He went on: “In Los Angeles in 2028, my administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes.
“We’re not going to let it happen.
“Just to make sure, I’m also directing our secretary of homeland security to deny any and all visa applications made by men attempting to fraudulently enter the US while identifying as women athletes to try and get into the games.”
In signing the order, surrounded by a number of women and girls, Mr Trump claimed “the war on women’s sports is over”.
Donald Trump speaking ahead of signing the order.
Pic: Reuters/Leah Millis
The order authorises the education department to penalise schools that allow transgender athletes to compete and any school found in violation could lose its federal funding.
Despite their small numbers within America, transgender people have been the target of three orders signed by Mr Trump since coming into office, Sky News’ US partner NBC News reported.
These targeted participation in the military and access to gender-affirming care.
On his very first day in office last month, Mr Trump passed one order that called on the federal government to only recognise two genders – male and female.
During his campaign, he pledged to “keep men out of women’s sports” and get rid of the “transgender insanity” but his office offered little in the way of details.
Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy at Advocates for Trans Equality, told Sky News’ Yalda Hakim that the order wasn’t just about elite athletes but would impact young children and their development too.
She said: “We’re basically taking those children and saying to them we don’t think it’s vital that you learn the same sets of skills that your peers develop [playing sports].
“We are setting you aside, putting you apart, and saying you’re different and it’s okay for you to be set aside, treated differently, and bullied by your peers.
“Children should be protected. Children should be allowed to follow their interests, follow the sports they want to participate in and not have to worry that public officials will treat their existence as a cheap round of applause.”
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Trump’s trans sport stance welcomed
This is the latest in a flurry of executive orders the Republican president has enacted in his first days and weeks in office.
Some of these have been blocked by judges, and it is not yet clear if this order will avoid such a fate.
It will likely involve how the Trump administration interprets Title IX – a civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination in education programmes or activities that receive federal funding.
Ahead of the signing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the order “upholds the promise of Title IX”.
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‘A solution looking for a problem’
It is not clear how many trans athletes are competing in the US, but cases like Lia Thomas swimming for the University of Pennsylvania have drawn attention in the past.
Cheryl Cooky, a professor at Purdue University who studies the intersection of gender, sports, media and culture, described the order as a “solution looking for a problem”.
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Doriane Lambelet Coleman, a professor at Duke Law School, pointed out that Mr Trump could have just “read the [existing] regulation traditionally” to achieve the same goals, instead of introducing the new executive orders.
Donald Trump is not a man in the habit of backing down.
His astonishing proposal to “own” Gaza and relocate two million Palestinians has faced unanimous opposition from America’s allies, but the president now has a plan and woe betide anyone who gets in the way. And that includes international law.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of the fighting,” he wrote on Truth Social.
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Nevermind that Gaza is not Israel’s land to turn over.
“The Palestinians… would have already been settled in safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.”
Nevermind that most countries in the region have angrily opposed this suggestion.
Aware, perhaps, that the prospect of US troops being sent to Gaza, possibly for decades, would meet opposition in Congress, Trump added “no soldiers by the US would be needed!”
Well that clears one question up. But who would be responsible for security in Gaza then?
Local police officers who are affiliated to Hamas? Private security contractors made of former American soldiers, operating under rules of engagement set by who?
While most of the world is recoiling at all this, in Israel they are leaning into it. Hard.
The defence minister, Israel Katz, has ordered the IDF to prepare plans to allow Gazans to leave by land, sea or air. This is being framed as voluntary migration, giving Gazans the freedom to leave for a better life elsewhere.
Some might. But what if most don’t. Then what?
Voluntary migration sounds nice and all, but how voluntary would it be, really?
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Palestinians, human rights organisations and others argue that after 15 and a half months of constant bombardment, Israel has left Gaza uninhabitable and so any departure would be down the barrel of guns that have been pointing at them for almost a year and a half.
Faced with all this, Trump, Netanyahu and their ministers continue to insist that only they know what’s best for Gazans.
Has anyone actually asked the people of Gaza?
The Olympics has been put on notice – comply with Donald Trump or face his wrath.
If transgender women are not banned from the 2028 Los Angeles Games, they’ll be banned from entering the United States.
And the president delivered a blunt warning from the White House: “Nobody’s going to be able to do a damn thing about it.”
The International Olympic Committee cannot have been surprised.
Trump had been riffing off this intentionally inflammatory rhetoric throughout the campaign, complaining transgender women competing in women’s events are cheating and endangering rivals.
This East Room ceremony – surrounded by female athletes – turned the policy pledge into reality through an executive order.
“This is one of the big reasons that we all won,” he said, between meandering into how he could have built a bigger ballroom for the occasion.
How will the IOC cope with Trump in the build up to LA 2028?
That could be determined by their own presidential election outcome in March.
The president signed the executive order surrounded by girls with the timing to coincide with National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Pic: AP
One candidate, Sebastian Coe, is already chiming with Trump, having already excluded anyone assigned male at birth from women’s categories in his role as World Athletics president.
For now this US order only directly impacts education institutions receiving federal funding.
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Trans athlete ban ‘is common sense’
But Trump is putting pressure on the IOC, which leaves eligibility rules to each sport to determine.
“In Los Angeles in 2028 my administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes,” Trump said.
“We’re just not going to let it happen and it’s going to end and it’s ending right now.”
How many athletes would this policy have impacted at the Paris 2024 Olympics?
Technically, none.
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There was a trans man fighting who was female at birth. And two non-binary athletes competing in their assigned sex at birth categories. They are not in Trump’s sights.
But two female boxers were targeted, falsely classified by Trump as trans women based on disputed gender eligibility tests.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been told to “make clear to the International Olympic Committee… that America categorically rejects transgender lunacy”.
Trump added: “We want them to change everything to do with the Olympics and this absolutely ridiculous subject.”
Maybe this was the moment the IOC started regretting awarding 2028 to Los Angeles. Trump boasts about winning that Olympic vote during his first term having never anticipated being in power for the Games themselves.
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While protecting women’s sport is the mission, the inclusive, unifying and celebratory messaging promoted by the Olympics is being undercut.
The Department of Homeland Security was ordered “to deny any and all visa applications made by men attempting to fraudulently enter the United States while identifying themselves as women athletes”.
There has not been a widespread distortion of competition by transgender women with physical advantages but it is a growing challenge confronting sports leaders.
Widely shared clips of some American college sports events being won by trans women have fed into wider culture war with Trump siding against “woke lunacy”.
The messaging resonated with voters believing the fairness of competitions is being distorted by trans athletes by having skeletal advantages from puberty after being male at birth.
Those physical advantages can pose a safety threat – particularly in combat sports.
Activists advocating for LGBT+ rights in sport decried the targeting of another marginalised community by the Trump administration.
Athlete Ally said in a statement: “Our hearts break for the trans youth who will no longer be able to know the joy of playing sports as their full and authentic selves.”
But many across the United States are sure to endorse Trump delivering on his “common sense” agenda.
“You’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he said, before signing the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order into law.
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