President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," an executive order that bans transgender athletes from participating in girls' and women's organized athletics.
As reported by ESPN, citing other sources including The Associated Press, the order gives federal agencies, including the Justice and Education departments, 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.
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 order's language reads, "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."
The timing coincided with National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and the order is the latest in a string of executive actions from Trump aimed at transgender people, according to the ESPN report.
In the run-up to the November election, Trump pledged to get rid of the "transgender insanity," although his campaign offered little in the way of details. Nonetheless, he found during the campaign that his pledge to "keep men out of women's sports" 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.
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.
That said, the future of the Education Department itself seems to be in jeopardy under Trump.
NCAA president Charlie Baker on Wednesday issued a statement saying the executive order "provides a clear, national standard." The NCAA has struggled to comply with varying state laws on this issue and threats of lawsuits, according to ESPN's report.
"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," Baker said in the statement. "To that end, President Trump's order provides a clear, national standard.
"The NCAA Board of Governors is reviewing the executive order and will take necessary steps to align NCAA policy in the coming days, subject to further guidance from the administration. The Association will continue to help foster welcoming environments on campuses for all student-athletes. We stand ready to assist schools as they look for ways to support any student-athletes affected by changes in the policy."
Individual states may react differently.
In an email Wednesday, Mike Faulk, a spokesperson for Nick Brown, attorney general for the state of Washington, wrote, “We are repulsed by the president’s dehumanization of the trans community.”
“This and other orders are clearly part of the administration’s larger plan to strip away civil rights across society,” Faulk wrote, as reported by The Spokesman-Review in Spokane.
Faulk said the attorney general’s office is “still looking at this order and are limited in what we can say in terms of providing legal advice or analysis.”
“We recommend WIAA [Washington Interscholastic Activities Association], college-level sports, and other state-level athletic bodies seek advice from their legal counsel about the implications of this EO,” Faulk wrote.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the WIAA said Wednesday that “in conjunction with legal review, the interpretation of state law, including how the Association’s gender-identity participation policies align with state law, has yet to change."
“Until the Association sees full language of an executive order and conducts further legal review, its impact on participation in Washington public schools is unknown,” the statement said.
The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association responded to the news Wednesday with a statement to The Patriot Ledger in Quincy. “The MIAA will continue to follow the law, as well as the advice of counsel, as it pertains to issues of gender and participation," the statement read.
In Massachusetts, boys are allowed to play girls' sports — and vice-versa — via a rule established in 1979 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court because of the Equal Rights Amendment added to the Massachusetts state constitution in 1976, The Patriot Ledger reported.
If a school does not offer a boys' version of a sport, then a boy is allowed to play a girls' sport. In Massachusetts, there is no high school boys' field hockey, so males are allowed to play on the girls' team. Girls are also eligible to play on a boys' team when there is no female team.
According to The Patriot Ledger, the MIAA handbook for July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025, also reads, "No student shall be denied in any implied or explicit manner the opportunity to participate in any interscholastic activity because of gender. A school may establish separate teams for males and females for interscholastic competition in a sport provided that both teams receive equal instruction, training, coaching, access to available facilities, equipment, opportunities to practice and compete."
Enforcing Trump's orders will be a priority of the embattled U.S. Department of Education. 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 to AP on the condition of anonymity 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, ESPN reported. 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, 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.
Trump also said that Director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem will "deny any and all visa applications made by men attempting to fraudulently enter the United States while identifying themselves as women athletes to try and get into the Games."
The United State Olympic & Paralympic Committee and organizers for the 2028 Olympics did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move is the latest by the Trump administration to limit the rights of the transgender population and was condemned by trans-rights advocates, including the National Women's Law Center and GLAAD.
"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," said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center.
Said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus: "The White House has made it clear: They're happy to endanger the safety and well-being of all kids in order to continue their attacks against trans kids."
Transgender people have already sued over several of the policies and are likely to challenge more of them in court.
"This was never about trans athletics, science or 'fairness.' It has always been about oppression," said Sadie Schreiner, a transgender woman competing in track and field at Rochester Institute of Technology. "They'll attack me all the same whether I'm on or off the track, so the only way I'll stop competing is in handcuffs."
Trump's order came a day after three former teammates of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas filed a lawsuit accusing the NCAA, the Ivy League, Harvard and their own school, Penn, of conspiring to allow Thomas to compete at conference and national championships.
The lawsuit, which makes similar allegations to one filed last year by Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines and others, alleges the defendants violated Title IX by allowing Thomas to swim "and acted in bad faith." Gaines joined Trump Wednesday for the signing ceremony, according to ESPN.
