Trump orders ban on trans female athletes

'The Trump campaign spent nearly 20% of its overall ad budget on transgender attack ads'

(Image credit: Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday signed an executive order seeking to bar transgender girls and women from competing in women's sports. The order directs the federal government to withhold funding from schools that do not comply with his administration's new interpretation of Title IX, the law that bars sex discrimination in schools.

Who said what

"The war on women's sports is over," Trump said at a White House signing ceremony. The directive was "widely expected," The New York Times said. "The Trump campaign spent nearly 20% of its overall ad budget on transgender attack ads," and he had already issued a flurry of orders "aimed at least in part at transgender Americans." Enforcement of the new decree relies on the Education Department, which Trump is reportedly taking steps to dismantle.

Along with using federal funds as a cudgel, The Washington Post said, Trump's order "seeks to use the bully pulpit to persuade sports associations governing nonscholastic sports to adopt similar rules," including the International Olympic Committee. The IOC and NCAA currently allow the governing bodies of individual sports to set rules on transgender athletes.

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What next?

Local school districts "have ranged widely in their responses" to Trump's attacks on transgender students, "from acquiescence to defiance," the Post said, but overall they are "working to understand what the shifting legal and political landscape means for them." Legal challenges to Trump's order are widely expected.

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.