Donald Trump bans transgender athletes from playing sports

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday, fulfilling a campaign promise to restrict transgender Americans from participation in sports as part of a broader push against LGBTQ+ rights. The White House had announced Wednesday morning that Trump would sign what it called the “No Men in Women’s Sports" executive order into law.” However, executive orders are not laws; they are directives issued by the president to federal agencies.

The order mandates immediate enforcement against schools and athletic associations, with the administration expecting the National Collegiate Athletic Association to change its rules in response. White House officials framed the move as a rejection of what they described as the Biden administration’s drastic reinterpretation of Title IX, arguing that the previous administration allowed transgender athletes, whom the administration considers men, to compete in women’s sports. However, the Biden administration had consistently asserted that its policies aimed to protect all athletes from discrimination rather than explicitly endorsing transgender participation. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bans sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding.

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Trump’s order follows a recent federal court ruling that struck down the Biden administration’s Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students nationwide. U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves ruled that the Biden-era regulations, which expanded Title IX to include protections against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, overstepped the Department of Education’s authority. That decision, lauded by conservatives, cleared the way for the Trump administration to reshape federal protections for transgender students, including their participation in school sports.

The Biden administration’s rule, which did not explicitly address athletics, had sought to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ students and set standards for handling sexual harassment and assault cases. Reeves’s decision invalidated the entire regulation, allowing Trump to revert to a more restrictive interpretation of Title IX — a move his campaign had promised.

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Despite the political rhetoric surrounding transgender athletes, NCAA President Charlie Baker recently testified before a U.S. Senate panel that fewer than 10 transgender athletes currently compete in NCAA sports. The NCAA oversees 510,000 student-athletes, meaning transgender athletes make up an infinitesimally small fraction of collegiate sports participants.

Civil rights advocates condemned Trump’s executive order, warning that it would increase harassment and discrimination against transgender people.

“We all want sports to be fair, students to be safe, and young people to have the opportunity to participate alongside their peers,” said Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson. “But an attempted blanket ban deprives kids of those things. This order could expose young people to harassment and discrimination, emboldening people to question the gender of kids who don’t fit a narrow view of how they’re supposed to dress or look.”

Robinson added, “[It] comes at a time when the Trump Administration continues to distract and divide the country, handing the keys to the federal government to unelected billionaires and refusing to address urgent issues that the country is facing. Participating in sports is about learning the values of teamwork, dedication, and perseverance. And for so many students, sports are about finding somewhere to belong. We should want that for all kids – not partisan policies that make life harder for them.”

Related: Trump signs executive order banning federal support of gender-affirming care for anyone under 19

This executive order is the latest in a series of sweeping anti-trans measures Trump has enacted since returning to the White House. On January 20, after his inauguration, he signed an order titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government," which effectively erased federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary people by defining gender strictly as male or female based on assigned sex at birth. The directive revoked gender identity protections across all federal agencies, requiring government-issued identification, including passports and Social Security records, to reflect only birth sex. It also eliminated federal safeguards against discrimination based on gender identity in schools, workplaces, and public accommodations.

On January 27, while aboard Air Force One, Trump signed an executive order targeting transgender military service members. The directive, titled "Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness," removed federal policies allowing transgender Americans to serve openly, stating that transgender identities were "incompatible with military values" and undermined "unit cohesion." The order signaled a return to the trans military ban enacted during Trump’s first term, which former President Joe Biden had reversed in 2021.

The following day, Trump signed an order restricting federal funding for gender-affirming care for transgender minors and some adults. The measure, titled "Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation," directed federal agencies to withdraw funding from institutions that provide puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and gender-affirming surgeries for anyone under 19. It also eliminated coverage of these treatments from federal employee health plans and TRICARE, the military’s health care system. The order called gender-affirming care “a stain on the nation’s history” and tasked the Department of Justice with investigating providers.

Legal experts note that executive orders cannot override federal civil rights protections, including those under Title IX, without congressional action and are expected to face swift legal challenges. This order is expected to face those challenges as well.

However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt falsely insisted during a press briefing ahead of the signing ceremony that the order “is going to be federal law in about an hour and a half.”

Leavitt used inflammatory rhetoric while defending the order, calling the Biden administration’s trans-inclusive policies a “disgusting betrayal of women and girls” and declaring that “gender ideology insanity is over.” She framed the executive order as an effort to “defend the safety of athletes, protect competitive integrity, and uphold the promise of Title IX.”

During the press conference, Leavitt also claimed the order would pressure the NCAA and the U.S. Olympic Committee into banning transgender women from women’s competitions, though neither organization is required to comply with executive orders. “The president, with the signing of his pen, starts a very public pressure campaign on these organizations to do the right thing for women and for girls across the country,” she said.