Report: President Donald Trump to sign executive order banning transgender athletes from competition

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that is designed to prevent those assigned male at birth from participating in women’s or girls’ sports, according to the Associated Press.

The executive order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” which Trump signed during a Wednesday afternoon ceremony, is another aggressive move in first month of the Republican president’s second administration regarding how the federal government will deal with transgender issues.

This is the second executive order Trump has dedicated to further restricting transgenderism, following a sweeping order on his first day making it U.S. policy to define an individual’s sex as only male and female and for those designations to be reflected on official government-issued documents such as IDs and passports, and in polices such as federal prison assignments.

“In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports,” the order states. “This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports. Moreover, under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 (Title IX), educational institutions receiving Federal funds cannot deny women an equal opportunity to participate in sports.

“As some Federal courts have recognized, ‘ignoring fundamental biological truths between the two sexes deprives women and girls of meaningful access to educational facilities.’ … Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”

Wednesday’s executive order completes a campaign pledge Trump made to “keep men out of women’s sports” that resonated for many beyond just his diehard right-wing base. According to a poll from AP VoteCast, more than half the voters surveyed believed “support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far.”

Wednesday’s executive order coincides with National Girls and Women in Sports Day and will address how Trump’s administration will interpret Title IX, the law that established gender equality in athletics and preventing sexual harassment on college campuses.

“This executive order restores fairness, upholds Title IX’s original intent, and defends the rights of female athletes who have worked their whole lives to compete at the highest levels,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, told the AP.

Each administration has the authority to issue its own interpretations on the landmark 1972 federal civil rights legislation, with each of the last two previous administrations, including Trump’s first, taking vastly different approaches to the order.

That included the Biden administration rolling back a Trump-era policy narrowing the definition of sexual harassment and how it’s reported, stipulating the rights of LGBTQ+ students are protected by federal law and providing new safeguards to sexual assault victims on college campuses.

Trump’s executive order follows similar rulings made at the state level, with 18 states having already banned transgender individuals — specifically transgender males — from participating in women’s sports despite the relatively small number of transgender athletes nation-wide.

Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas all currently have laws restricting transgender college student sports participation, according to BestColleges.com. Other states have similar bans that have been put in place by the state judiciary.

In April 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 734, a federal bill that mirrored similar legislation that was already adopted by nearly half of the U.S. states declaring it a “violation of Title IX” to “allow individuals of the male sex to participate in programs or activities that are designated for women or girls.” HR 734 never made it beyond the House because the then-Democratic-led Senate refused to take it up and then-sitting president Joe Biden promised to veto the bill if it ever came to his desk.

Now it appears Trump has taken it upon himself to make a similar declaration as an executive order.