President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in female sports.
The measure, called the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order,” is the fourth executive order targeting transgender people he has signed since he took office on January 20.
“The radical left has waged an all-out campaign to erase the very concept of biological sex and replace it with a militant transgender ideology,” Trump said from a podium at the White House, with dozens of women and girls standing behind him.
“With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”
Trump also gave multiple examples of what he described as “men claiming to be girls” and “stealing” victories, at one point perpetuating the false claim that Algerian female boxer Imane Khelif, who faced intense scrutiny over her gender at the Paris Olympics in August, was assigned male at birth.
In a call with reporters Wednesday morning ahead of the signing, White House officials said that they expect headlines about the executive order to use the word “transgender” but that “this has nothing to do with that.”
The order, they said, aims to protect women’s access to safe and fair athletic opportunities, and it will do that in two ways, they said.
First, officials said, the administration will roll back the Biden administration’s guidance on Title IX, a civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination in education programmes and activities that receive federal funding.
Under that guidance, schools were required to allow trans students to access school sports teams and sex-segregated facilities that align with their gender identities.
Trump’s order will, instead, bar students assigned male at birth from participating in girls’ and women’s sports and using women’s restrooms.
The Education Department will be tasked with investigating potential violations, and the administration “will be asking for investigations,” the officials said.
Second, officials said, the administration will work with sports governing bodies, including the International Olympic Committee, to ensure the guidance is followed in non-educational settings. The guidance, they added, will affect U.S. visa policies.
“If you are coming into the country and you are claiming that you are a woman but you are a male here to compete against women, we’re going to be reviewing that for fraud,” one of the officials said.
The timing of the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order” does not appear to be coincidental: Wednesday is the 39th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day, which was started in 1987 as a way to celebrate female athletes and inspire girls to participate in sports.
The issue of transgender women participating in women’s sports was a consistent and divisive topic leading up to the November elections.
On the campaign trail- and even after he won the election- Trump referred to trans women as men and pledged to “keep men out of women’s sports.” (NBC)
