On February 5, President Trump signed an executive order designed to prohibit individuals whose sex was assigned male at birth from participating in women’s sports.
The measure titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” rescinds all funding 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.” Further, the executive order clarifies that “It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly.” [NPR]
What They’re Saying
Restricting participation in sports to one’s sex assigned at birth is a popular policy position. According to a 2023 survey by Gallup, 69% of Americans believe that transgender athletes should only be able to compete on a team aligned with their sex assigned at birth. Proponents of the EO say that transgender women athletes have an unfair advantage and could make sports more dangerous for biological women.
On the other hand, opponents say that the issue of transgender individuals participating in sports is overblown. Carl Charles, a senior attorney for LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group Lambda Legal, said the measure impacts “a vanishingly small subset of people who on the whole, outside of a few sensationalized examples, have been participating in school sports programs for decades with absolutely no issues.” [NBC News]
Zoom in: The EO urges tougher enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 in order to protect “all-female athletic opportunities and all-female locker rooms.” Title IX was expanded under the Biden administration to protect students from discrimination based on their gender identity and sexual orientation, but late last month, a federal judge rolled back these Biden-era rules. Since, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it would revert back to President Trump’s 2020 Title IX regulations—which limit on-campus protections to an individual’s biological sex. [Inside Higher Ed]
What’s Next
Federal Level
The Trump administration will promote similar policies with major athletic organizations and governing bodies, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which currently allows transgender and intersex athletes to participate on a sport-by-sport basis.
The NCAA, which governs collegiate athletics at over 1,000 institutions in the U.S., already shared updated participation policies reflecting the EO requirements, and will accept “further guidance” from the Trump administration on how to adjust. Yet, the NCAA reports that of its 510,000 athletes, only 10 are publicly transgender, representing less than 1% of all collegiate athletes.
State Level
In the wake of the EO, we will continue to monitor shifts in state policy closely. According to the independent nonprofit Movement Advancement Project, 25 states have laws on the books that ban transgender students from participating in sports teams consistent with their gender identity as of February 13. Among them are Florida and Texas, whose conservative leaders (Govs. Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, respectively) have been outspoken about and taking action on the issue for years. [NPR; The Texas Tribune]
New Hampshire, which signed restrictions into law in July 2024, will likely be in the spotlight for the foreseeable future. The first legal challenge to the EO was announced on February 12, after a federal judge approved a request by two transgender teens to add President Trump and members of his administration to the list of defendants in their existing lawsuit against their schools and the state. The plaintiffs called the EO “a broad intention to deny transgender people legal protections and to purge transgender people from society.” [NBC News; The New York Times, subscription model]
In my home state of Virginia, the ban is not currently state law, but a 2023 policy (Code of Virginia § 22.1-23.3) dictates that the use of school-based facilities and participation in activities—including sports—are subject to sex-specific eligibility. School districts (including Fairfax County Public Schools, the largest district in the state) and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations (including the ACLU of Virginia, which won a discrimination suit in 2024 on behalf of a transgender athlete against the Hanover County School Board) have resisted implementation of this policy.
The Virginia High School League (VHSL)—which governs public high school athletics at over 300 schools throughout the state and about 177,000 student athletes per year—immediately moved to comply with Trump’s EO. This represents a shift. Over the last decade, VHSL has authorized transgender athletes to participate on school sports teams if they met certain criteria and filed a participation waiver. In a recent interview with Virginia Public Media, VHSL executive director Billy Huan shared that from October 2020 to December 2024, there were 31 appeals from trans athletes to play; of those appeals, 28 were granted, and three were denied.
The decision, he said, was clear. Schools are concerned about losing funding and violating Title IX, and VHSL didn’t want “member schools and school divisions [to] have to choose between the league and the executive order.” Also, compliance with the EO provides member schools with “clear and consistent direction” regarding athletics.
But not all Virginians are happy. Robert Rigby, board member of LGBTQ+ advocacy group FCPS Pride, told Fairfax Now that VHSL is “abandoning its values,” and suggested that inclusive schools should consider withdrawing from VHSL’s athletics governance.
The Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association (VISAA), which governs private school athletics in the state, will also comply with the EO. Their policy: “to maintain competitive fairness in VISAA championship events, participation shall be determined by a student’s biological sex rather than gender or gender identity.” [WAVY 10]
The Big Picture
LGBTQ+ students are more likely to experience feelings of hopelessness and suicidal ideation than their peers: in a 2023 CDC survey, 72% of transgender students and 69% of those questioning their gender reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and 1 in 4 attempted suicide.
Can sports help? A 2024 NIH study found that youth sports participation is a strong intervention against depression and reduces suicide risk. [The 74]
