Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, the latest in a slew of moves rolling back the rights of trans people.
The order establishes stricter mandates on sports and gender policy, directing federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, to interpret federal Title IX rules as the prohibition of transgender girls and women from participating in any female sports categories.
The order is titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”.
The order, which mandates immediate enforcement, directs state attorneys general to identify best practices for enforcement.
“With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” Trump said on Wednesday.
This latest attack on trans rights follows a sequence of controversial mandates by the Trump administration. During his first day in office, Trump signed an order calling for the federal government to define sex as “only male or female” based on reproductive cells and for it to be reflected on all official documents such as passports.
Last week, he signed an executive order prohibiting gender transitions for people under the age of 19. It included gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers, the use of hormones such as estrogen or testosterone, and surgical procedures.
Trump has also taken aim at Biden’s orders to combat gender discrimination. Last month, Trump signed an order called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” that instructs the federal government to remove “all radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms”.
The White House expects all sports bodies such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to change their rules in accordance with the latest order.
“We’re a national governing body and we follow federal law,” the NCAA president, Charlie Baker, told Republican senators at a hearing in December. “Clarity on this issue at the federal level would be very helpful.”
The trans community has already seen the effects of the barrage of attacks on their rights. Following Trump’s orders, several hospitals across the US stopped providing care for transgender youth.
Prisons have likewise isolated transgender women in custody, telling them that they will be transferred to men’s prisons after losing access to gender-affirming medical treatments.
