PResident Donald Trump signed a decree on Wednesday to prohibit transgender athletes from participating in the sports of girls and women.
The order, entitled “preventing men of female sports”, gives federal agencies great latitude to guarantee that the entities which receive federal funding respect Title IX in alignment on the opinion of the Trump administration, which interprets the “Sex” as a sex that someone was attributed to birth at birth.
“With that executive decree, The war against women’s sports is over, “said Trump during a signature ceremony in the East room which included legislators and female athletes who came out to support a ban, including the former college swimmer Riley Gaines.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that the order “maintains the promise of title IX” and will require “immediate measures, including application measures, against schools and sports associations” which Refuse sports women with one sex and unique sex changing rooms.
The time of order has coincided with the girls and national women during the day of sport, and is the last in a series of executive actions of the republican president aimed at transgender people.
Find out more: The implications of Trump’s executive decree on sex
Trump found during the campaign that the subject resonated beyond the usual lines of the party. More than half of the voters interviewed by Voting Voter have declared that support for the rights of transgender people in government and society has gone too far. He leaned in rhetoric before the elections, committing to get rid of “transgender madness”, although his campaign has gone little in terms of details.
The order offers a certain clarity. For example, it authorizes the Department of Education to penalize schools which allow transgender athletes to compete, citing non-compliance with title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in schools. Any school found in violation could potentially be ineligible for federal funding.
The application of Trump’s orders will be a priority of the besieged department. During a call this week, the acting director of the civil rights office told staff that they should align their investigations on Trump’s priorities, according to people who were on the call subject to condition of Anonymity to AP for fear of reprisals.
Already since Trump took office, the department opened an investigation into Denver’s public schools in a fully sexual bathroom which replaced the girls’ bathroom, while leaving another exclusivity to boys.
Trump also warned the Olympic International Committee before the 2028 summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The president said that he had empowered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to specify to the IOC that “America categorically rejects transgender madness. We want them to change everything that has to do with the Olympic Games and to see with this absolutely ridiculous subject. »»
The IOC has mainly succeeded in the participation of transgenderness, by postponing international federations for each sport.
This could change, however, when a new president of the IOC replaces Thomas Bach to retirement. The former star of the track Sebastian Coe, now the leader in world athletics, is one of the candidates for the elections in March. Coe was an ardent defender of the limitation of participation in female sports in cisgenres women.
Trump also said that the director of internal security, Kristi Noem, “would deny all the visa requests presented by men who try to fraudulently penetrate in the United States while identifying themselves as female athletes to try to enter Games ”.
The organizers of the 2028 Olympic Games immediately responded to requests for comments.
Order is the last in a series of Trump administration movements targeting transgender people.
The previous ones sought to reject the idea that the federal government can move to a sex other than that attributed to birth. This has implications for areas such as passports and prisons. He also opened the door to prohibit transgender military from the army; called upon to end federal health insurance and other funding for sexual care for transgender people under 19; And restrict the way sex lessons can be taught in schools.
The last order was condemned by the defenders of trans-rights, notably the National Women’s Law Center and the Glaad.
“Contrary to what the president wants you to believe, trans students do not threaten sports, schools or this country, and they deserve the same opportunities as their peers to learn, play and grow in safe environments,” said Fatima Goss Graves, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Women’s Law Center.
The decline in some of the administration’s initiatives has already started in court. Transgender people have pursued several of the policies and others are likely to come. Civil rights lawyers managing affairs have affirmed that, in some cases, Trump orders violate the laws adopted by the congress and the protections in the Constitution – and that they go beyond the authority of the president.
There could be similar questions for this order, for example: can the president demand that the NCAA change its policies?
The president of the NCAA, Charlie Baker, said that his council of governors examined the order and “would take the necessary measures to align the NCAA policy in the coming days, subject to new directives of the administration”. Baker, who said last year, he was aware of less than 10 active NCAA athletes who had identified as transgender, noted that the order provides at least one uniform policy instead of a patchwork of state laws.
The order came a day after three former teammates of the Transgender Lia Thomas swimmer filed a complaint accusing the NCAA, the Ivy League, Harvard and their own school, Penn, of conspiracy to allow Thomas to compete during the conference championships and national.
The trial, which makes allegations similar to those deposited last year by sheaths and others, alleys that the defendants violated title IX by allowing Thomas to swim “and acted in bad faith”.
—The Press Writers Associated Darlene Superville, Ml Price, Collin Binkley, Bianca Vázquez Toness, Geoff Mulvihill and Eddie Pells contributed to this report.