feature image photo by Kevin Dietsch / Staff via Getty Images
Well, in what feels like a non-stop barrage of precedents being set, we’ve truly hit an all new threshold today. Amongst a crowd of young women and girls, President Trump signed a broad-reaching Executive Order banning the participation of trans women in women’s sports. The Executive Order tactically perverts Title IX case law to argue that the actions prompted by the order are being pushed forward in order to “protect” women and girls by giving them the “equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
Taking its cues from a myriad of other state-wide trans sports bans, the Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports Executive Order essentially aims to do the same thing these states have done but at the Federal level: prevent trans women from competing on women’s sports teams in any areas — such as schools, universities, district and state teams, etc. — that receive Federal or state funding of any kind. The Executive Order, like so many he’s signed in the last week, makes definitive demands but, in this case, fails to delineate which sports would be impacted by the ban, meaning it has sweeping implications for not just major sports but also minor ones like chess, darts, bowling, and cornhole. It is also aimed not only at professional sports leagues but essentially all schools that receive government funding, meaning this will impact young trans kids who just want to play sports, something all kids should have access to.
But that’s not even the biggest concern here, of course. This Executive Order is the fourth one to be signed by Trump in the last week that takes direct aim at the lives and livelihood of trans people, specifically trans women in this order. As such, it represents yet another attempt by this administration to set precedents and push forward the creation of laws that would essentially make targeted discrimination of trans people the rule of law in the U.S.
What Does Trump’s Sports Executive Order Say?
Once again, this document is a giant piece of shit dreamed up by a bunch of people who use their crusade against trans people to sow discord and confusion and further marginalize a group of people who make up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
Like the other four Executive Orders regarding trans people that he’s already signed, this one immediately — literally through the title of the order — defines trans women as men and then makes the inaccurate claim that “many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports.” According to the introductory material in the order, it is designed to ensure that “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.”
From there, the order serves an entirely distorted reinterpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 by claiming Title IX was created to make sure women and girls have “equal opportunity” in competitive sports, which therefore means that the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports is a blatant violation of that law. As a result, it orders the Secretary of Education and the Attorney General “to bring regulations and policy guidance into line with the Congress’ existing demand for ‘equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes’ by clearly specifying and clarifying that women’s sports are reserved for women” and to take action against any educational institution that “allows ‘men’” to compete in women’s sports by upholding the disciplinary actions per Title IX’s orders. More specifically, it orders that the Secretary of Education and the Attorney General should rescind any and all funding from educational institutions that “deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women’s category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.”
If that wasn’t enough to cause alarm (and piss you off), the lunacy doesn’t stop there. The order also takes aim at sport-specific governing bodies by once again making the inaccurate claim that these governing bodies “have no official position or requirements regarding trans-identifying athletes.” Because the administration has chosen to ignore that many sport-specific governing bodies actually do have positions regarding trans athletes, the order calls for a variety of different actions be taken by officials across the administration in order to address this “issue.”
It says that within 60 days, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy must meet with major athletic organizations, governing bodies, and “female athletes harmed by such policies” to create policies in compliance with the order and with the order’s interpretation of Title IX as well as meet with State Attorneys General “to identify best practices in defining and enforcing equal opportunities for women to participate in sports and educate them about stories of women and girls who have been harmed by male participation in women’s sports.”
The order also offers directives for the Secretary of State within that same 60 day timespan. It instructs the Secretary of State, along with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ Sports Diplomacy Division and the Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, to rescind U.S. support for any international sports programs that have not instituted a similar ban and to “promote” bans on trans participation in sports in the United Nations and around the world through meetings with international athletic organizations and governing bodies. The Secretary of State is also instructed to make the International Olympic Committee amend their bylaws to definitively prevent trans women from participating in women’s sports and to ensure that women who do not meet the testosterone requirement as set out by the IOC cannot compete even if they use testosterone reduction therapies.
Startlingly, the order doesn’t stop there. One of the final parts of the order instructs the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to perform a witch hunt on international athletes attempting to come to the U.S. to play sports in order to make sure they aren’t “males seeking to participate in women’s sports.” It gives the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security the permission to create provisions that would block, deny, or rescind entry to the U.S. for athletes suspected of fitting in this specification put forth by the order through the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Is Trump’s Sports Executive Order Legal?
Yet another situation where I must ask — does this sound legal to you? Because it shouldn’t. Of course this isn’t legal. This is absurdity wrapped in the guise of “common sense.”
This is a flagrant violation of our right to protection under the law as granted by the Fourteenth Amendment. Further, contrary to whatever devious interpretation this document is putting forth, it is a glaring violation of Title IX, which is part of the Fourteenth Amendment, because Title IX says “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” As we’ve said in these articles before, this Executive Order will for sure face legal pushback through the courts (and possibly Congress).
However, unlike the other Executive Orders aimed at trans people, this one is unique in that trans participation in sports bans have already gained bipartisan support around the country and in the Federal government. Although Republicans have led the charge, the conversation on trans participation in sports has historically been hotly debated amongst Democrats in both the House and the Senate, with the Biden administration completely abandoning its plans to push forth new protections for trans athletes in 2024. Just last month, the House passed a bill known as the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” that seeks to amend Title IX to recognize a person’s “sex” “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The bill passed by a small margin but still needed Democratic support to win, which it did get from two House Democrats.
And perhaps equally unsurprisingly, it took basically no time for the NCAA, the organization that mediates and controls collegiate athletics — and a non-profit organization that is NOT Federally funded — to put out the following statement through its president, known coward Charlie Baker: “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. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.” The statement proves, once again, that the NCAA is less interested in their student-athletes than they consistently pretend to be.
However, other organizational leaders did take time today to stand up against the order. Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, issued the following statement after the Executive Order was signed: “Contrary to what the president wants you to believe, trans students do not pose threats to sports, schools, or this country, and they deserve the same opportunities as their peers to learn, play and grow up in safe environments. The far-right’s disturbing obsession with controlling the bodies, hearts, and minds of our country’s youth harms all students. Rather than protecting women and girls, sports bans harm any of us who do not conform to someone else’s idea of what a woman or girl should look, dress, or act like. Policymakers should instead focus on ending the enormous disparity that remains in sports opportunities for women and girls and equally funding women’s and girls’ teams. And schools and sports governing bodies should stand firmly against implementing this unlawful executive order and ensure every student has an opportunity to play. We stand with trans students and will continue to fight back against attacks on their rights.”
While it’s hard to say what the fate of this particular Executive Order and the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” will be exactly, these attempts to prevent trans people from participating in sports have a lot of detractors aiming to continue taking action against them.
As we’ve said here many times before: Executive Orders are NOT laws, which means no one legally has to comply with anything they’re saying. Unfortunately, we also know that early compliance and unfettered agreement with the order is what truly threatens to sow further chaos and disorder in our educational and athletic institutions right now.
As a trans and genderless athlete who’s had to make concessions about how I participate in competitive powerlifting due to the United States Powerlifting Associations rules about trans participation in the sport, I know this Executive Order is just going to give these sports-specific governing bodies who already have policies aimed at trans participation in their sports more fuel to enforce them. We’re already seeing it in that statement issued by the NCAA, which is undoubtedly one of the largest governing bodies in sports in this country. With the other Executive Orders, it seems much easier to say that compliance — whether it happens now or when/if these orders become laws — should be avoided at all costs. But I’ll continue saying it even for this. Anyone involved in any institution that’s attempting to engage and comply with these orders should be fighting back at all costs.
I mentioned in this piece that part of this order is trying to restrict travel for international athletes coming into this country. That paired with what we’ve already seen regarding the issuance of appropriate documentation for trans people in this country makes the administration’s aims very clear: They want complete and total control over what trans people do or try to do in every facet of their lives. No cis person who considers themselves “righteous” or an “ally” should be upholding these precedents even if it is a risk to be defiant. I recognize my position might be viewed as harsh or totalizing, but the only way we’ll be able to move forward is if people start standing up wherever they are.
Read more about trans participation in sports:
- What are the origins of the trans sports debate?
- The Olympics have always been a battleground for gender panic.
- Trans athletes aren’t going anywhere.
- Why Florida high school students walking out over trans sports bans matters.
- The catch-22 of being a trans woman in sports.
- Cycling has a trans exclusion problem.
- Trump’s anti-trans ads targeted moderates and football fans.
