President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” gives federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.
“With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” Trump said at a signing ceremony in the East Room that included lawmakers and female athletes who have come out in support of a ban, including former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the order “upholds the promise of Title IX” and will require “immediate action, including enforcement actions, against schools and athletic associations” that deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms.
The timing of the order coincided with National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and is the latest in a string of executive actions from the Republican president aimed at transgender people.
Trump found during the campaign that the topic resonated beyond the usual party lines. More than half the voters surveyed by AP VoteCast said support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far. He leaned into the rhetoric before the election, pledging to get rid of “transgender insanity,” though his campaign offered little in the way of details.
The order offers some clarity. For example, it authorizes the Education Department to penalize schools that allow transgender athletes to compete, citing noncompliance with Title IX, which prohibits sexual discrimination in schools. Any school found in violation could potentially be ineligible for federal funding.
Enforcing Trump’s orders will be a priority of the embattled department. In a call this week, the acting director of the Office for Civil Rights told staff they would need to align their investigations with Trump’s priorities, according to people who were on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to AP for fear of reprisals.
Already since Trump took office, the department has opened an inquiry into Denver public schools over an all-gender bathroom that replaced a girls’ bathroom, while leaving another one exclusive to boys.
Trump also issued a warning to the International Olympic Committee ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The president said he had empowered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make it clear to the IOC that “America categorically rejects transgender lunacy. We want them to change everything having to do with the Olympics and having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.”
The IOC has essentially passed the buck on transgender participation, deferring to the international federations for each sport.
That could change, however, when a new IOC president comes on to replace the retiring Thomas Bach. Former track star Sebastian Coe, now the leader of World Athletics, is among the candidates up for election in March. Coe has been a strong proponent of limiting participation in female sports to cisgender women.
