By Valerie Richardson and Jeff Mordock – The Washington Times – Wednesday, February 5, 2025
President Trump ordered a ban Wednesday on biological males participating in girls’ and women’s scholastic sports, fulfilling a campaign promise and posterizing Democrats on an issue that has become a slam dunk for Republicans.
The enthusiastic crowd that packed the White House East Room roared as Mr. Trump declared that “the war on women’s sports is over” before signing the executive order.
“With my action this afternoon, we’re putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” he said.
The ceremony featured a who’s who of Republican governors and lawmakers, but the girls in soccer and basketball jerseys stole the show as they surrounded the president while he signed the executive order.
After he finished, they shouted in unison: “Thank you!”
The Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports order rescinds federal funds from educational programs that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.” It opposes “male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly.”
“This will effectively end the attack on female athletes at public K-12 schools and virtually all colleges and universities,” said Mr. Trump, who held the signing ceremony on National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
LGBTQ advocates accused the president of targeting transgender youths for discrimination. Four of Mr. Trump’s initial executive orders seek to roll back gender ideology.
“Our hearts break for the trans youth who will no longer be able to know the joy of playing sports as their full and authentic selves,” the LGBTQ group Athlete Ally said on Instagram.
Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, called the executive order “cruel.” He said it “segregates a group of young children, bars them from something that all other kids get to do, and forces schools and teachers to pile on or risk their jobs.”
The order directs the secretary of state to encourage international sports governing bodies to enact rules protecting the sex-based female category, a priority for Mr. Trump ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Olympic athletes from Algeria and Taiwan won gold in women’s boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics despite being barred from the International Boxing Association world championships in 2023 for failing gender verification tests.
The boxers were allowed to compete based on their passports, identifying them as female. Mr. Trump’s executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to review policies allowing male-born athletes to enter the country to compete in women’s sports.
“We’re just not going to let it happen,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s going to end, and it’s ending right now, and nobody’s going to be able to do a damn thing about it because when I speak, we speak with authority.”
After the ceremony, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters that preserving female-exclusive competition is a “nonpartisan, bipartisan issue that the overwhelming majority of Americans support.”
“Governors and other officials, as well as women across the country, are so proud of President Trump for stepping up and signing this executive order,” Mr. Abbott said.
The issue may be nonpartisan, but it’s barely bipartisan. Democrats have fought state and federal bans on transgender girls in female scholastic sports, accusing Republicans of transphobia for seeking to prevent transgender athletes from competing based on gender identity as opposed to sex at birth.
Only two House Democrats sided with Republicans last month in passing H.R. 28, a bill to require scholastic athletes to compete based on sex at birth.
Twenty-five Republican-led states have enacted laws banning male-born athletes from participating in female sports based on gender identity. Alaska and Virginia have restricted male-born athletes from female scholastic sports via administrative regulation.
Still, Democrats were largely mum on Wednesday’s order, perhaps because polls show Mr. Trump’s sentiments reflect those of the American public.
A New York Times/Ipsos survey released last month found that 79% oppose biological males who identify as female in girls’ and women’s sports, including 67% of Democrats.
On hand for the ceremony was All-American swimmer Riley Gaines, one of the nation’s most recognized advocates for single-sex female sports, who contrasted Mr. Trump’s approach with that of the transgender-friendly Biden administration.
“For the past three years, we’ve been stonewalled,” she told The Washington Times. “So to now have a leader who displayed such moral clarity and who was willing to send a message across the nation that you matter, that you deserve to call yourself champions, that equal opportunity is important to him — it’s a stark contrast with the Biden administration.”
The photo of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas towering over Ms. Gaines as they stood on the podium at the 2022 NCAA women’s championships helped galvanize public opinion. Another photo taken Wednesday may have been just as powerful.
“I believe that photo with Trump and young girls crowded around him as he signed it will be one of the most iconic pictures that will come out of his presidency,” Ms. Gaines said. “That’s up there with the mug shot, behind McDonald’s and in the garbage truck. But this picture, for me — it takes the cake.”
