Trump admin executive order banning transgender participation in women's sports just the start, expert says

Yahoo

10-02-2025

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that prevents men from competing in women's sports, but amid ongoing litigation, conflicting state laws and changing organizational guidelines, questions remain about how the directive will play out.
The executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" prohibits schools and colleges that receive federal funds and are subject to Title IX from allowing men onto women's sports teams and into women's locker rooms and restrooms. If educational institutions and their athletic associations fail to comply, they could face investigations and a loss of federal funds.
"Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy," the EO reads. "It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women's sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth."
Matt Sharp, senior counsel and director of the Center for Public Policy at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), broke down how the EO will impact educational institutions across the country.
"These schools, their duty is to comply with Title IX, first and foremost… so to the extent that these other states have laws to the contrary, those state laws ultimately have to give ground to Title IX and the requirement is that these schools and colleges have to comply with this directive," Sharp said to Fox News Digital.
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Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was originally a 37-word provision barring schools that receive federal funding from discriminating against students on the basis of sex, ensuring equal opportunity for women in the educational setting. ADF is actively involved in litigation challenging state laws that permitted transgender athletes to compete with females, which they have repeatedly argued flips the intention of Title IX on its head.
"We know that federal law supersedes state law on these issues," Sharp added to Fox News Digital. "The clear policy from the Trump administration and what we would argue has always been the case with Title IX, is that allowing men to take away these opportunities violates that promise of equal opportunity for young women."
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which has dragged its feet on establishing a policy restricting transgender participation in women's sports, issued a new policy in line with Trump's EO on Thursday, banning all biological males from women's sports.
"A student-athlete assigned male at birth may not compete on a women's team," the new policy reads. The previous policy, which had been in place in 2010, allowed biological males to compete in the women's category after undergoing at least one year of testosterone suppression treatment.
"We were encouraged to see the NCAA finally, I want to emphasize that, 'finally,' recognize that they've long been on the wrong side of this issue," Sharp said. "From very early on, they were the ones pushing the policies that allowed men to compete in women's sports and even after overwhelming evidence about men taking away opportunities from young women, rather than them showing real leadership, they kind of punted and said, 'Well, we're not going to have a policy, we're just going to defer to individual sporting association bodies.'"
The "announcement that they're taking the position that a male student is not eligible to compete on women's teams is a good step and I want to applaud them once again for finally coming along with that," he added. "But I think there's still more work to be done, even by the NCAA."
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While the Trump administration's EO addresses female-only space like locker rooms, the NCAA did not provide clarification in its new regulations.
"That's where some of the most tragic stories happen," Sharp said. "When you hear Riley Gaines and some of the other female athletes talk about the violation of their privacy when a male, Lia Thomas, was allowed into the girls' locker room with these NCAA sanctioned and organized events, that's not okay," he said to Fox News Digital.
"The NCAA needs to do a whole lot more to ensure that female athletes that are part of the NCAA program get a fair and level playing field and have their privacy and safety protected when they're competing in NCAA events," he added.
The EO also directs the Secretary of State to "see that the International Olympic Committee amends the standards governing Olympic sporting events to promote fairness, safety, and the best interests of female athletes by ensuring that eligibility for participation in women's sporting events is determined according to sex and not gender identity or testosterone reduction." Los Angeles is set to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, prompting questions about how the EO will be applied.
The IOC faced global criticism at this summer's Paris Olympics, when Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan won gold medals in women's boxing. Both athletes had previously been disqualified from international competitions for failing gender eligibility tests. However, the IOC and current President Thomas Bach voiced support for both athletes. Khelif and Yu-ting's natural birth sex is disputed.
"We would hope the IOC would, of its own accord, follow this policy and more importantly, follow the science and make sure that men are not competing in women's sports," Sharp said. "We think that's the best of all outcomes, where the IOC on its own volition, course corrects and reinstitutes strong policies that make sure men are not in women's sports."
While the executive order is a huge step in the right direction, Sharp said that in order to see lasting changes, the Supreme Court will need to provide clarity, so guidelines aren't changing from one presidential administration to the next.
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The Biden-Harris administration attempted to redefine sex discrimination through its changes to Title IX to include gender identity, which critics argued would gut women's equal opportunities in sports and threaten their privacy and safety in private spaces. The changes were implemented nationwide in August in states where the rule doesn't face legal challenges. A federal judge blocked the Biden administration's Title IX changes nationwide in January.
ADF still has cases pending in federal court challenging state laws that allow transgender participation in female sports, so a clear ruling from the Supreme Court would be beneficial, Sharp said.
"The federal courts have very consistently ruled against the Biden administration's Title IX rule that tried to insert gender identity into Title IX," he added. "That's the right interpretation and what we would love is for the Supreme Court to affirm that so that it's not circuit by circuit, case by case, but as it was originally written, as it's properly interpreted, to protect opportunities for women based on biological sex, not on gender identity or anything else that was never contemplated when Title IX was enacted."
On Thursday, the Department of Education announced investigations into San Jose State University, the University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, where violations of Title IX have been reported, according to its press release. The Education Department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is also actively reviewing and evaluating Title IX compliance and protection for female athletes at a number of other schools.Original article source: Trump admin executive order banning transgender participation in women's sports just the start, expert says