President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued another executive order taking aim at the transgender community, this time focusing on eligibility for sports participation.
In a signing ceremony for “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” in the East Room of the White House, the president proclaimed “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”
Despite the insistence by Trump and Republicans that trans women and girls have a biological advantage in sports over cisgender women and girls, the research has been inconclusive, at best.
A study in the peer reviewed Sports Medicine journal found “no direct or consistent research” pointing to this conclusion. A different review in 2023 found that post-pubertal differences are “reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.”
Other critics of efforts to exclude trans student athletes have pointed to the small number of people who are impacted. Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, testified last year that fewer than 10 of the NCAA’s 522,000+ student athletes identify as trans.
The Trump-Vance administration has reversed course from the Biden-Harris administration’s policy on Title IX rules barring sex-based discrimination.
“If you’re going to have women’s sports, if you’re going to provide opportunities for women, then they have to be equally safe, equally fair, and equally private opportunities, and so that means that you’re going to preserve women’s sports for women,” a White House official said prior to the issuance of the order.
Former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules, which went into effect last year, clarified that pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
The White House official indicated that the administration will consider additional guidance, regulations, and interpretations of Title IX, as
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students
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Joe Biden