United States President Donald Trump is expected to sign another executive order on Wednesday that would ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports entirely.
This ban is something President Trump promised to do across the campaign trail, even mentioning he would make it happen via executive order. This order will join a long line of executive orders signed by the President since he took office on January 20th.
Many of them have been particularly focused on gender ideology, including one signed on his first day in office, which stated the government would only recognize two genders, male and female.
The U.S. House of Representatives also recently passed a bill that would prohibit federal funding from going to K-12 schools that include transgender students on women’s sports teams. The bill is currently awaiting Senate approval, and, if it passes, it will then move to the President’s desk for approval.
At least one of his executive orders, freezing all federal grants and funding, has already been rescinded after legal challenges, and more are facing other legal issues.
The order Trump is due to sign tomorrow is entitled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”, and while we don’t have the exact details of the order, including the method of determining gender, certain individuals have already confirmed they will be attending the signing tomorrow. Among those is activist and former swimmer Riley Gaines, who has been outspoken in national media since she tied with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the 200 freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Championships
Wednesday is also National Girls and Women in Sports Day, which is recognized on the first Wednesday of February annually.
swimswamsnbc
Why are some focused on the SMALL NUMBER of trans women in sport? Does this mean it is OK? The issue is the basic unfairness of allowing men to compete against women.
Yes, the number of trans women in sport is small. So what? It’s still not fair. The problem is that there is a segment of our sport culture that thinks this is alright…nothing to see here, etc. It’s not alright. It’s unfair. Too many are opting for sensitivity over truth with a set of strongly held bad ideas.
it’s also not fair that i’m not 7′ so I didn’t make the basketball team
sports are inherently not really that fair.
People talk about the small number of trans women in sports because the issue has been completely blown out of proportion by the media and politicians who are more interested in fighting a culture war than doing anything to make people’s lives even marginally better. This is the most commented on swimswam article in 2 weeks and is only tangentially related to swimming. This article has more comments than Luca urlando breaking an ncaa record has. It’s not about being sensitive over being truthful, it’s about how nauseating it is that we choose to focus on this as a community time and time again when this is such a small issue that has very limited impact on the sport as… Read more »
NAILED IT!
Common sense W
How about we listen to women when they report coaches and trainers for abuse either mental or physical. This is actually a bigger problem for women in sporting
I don’t understand the uproar to be honest. Why must the vast majority bend over backwards to the very small number of trans athletes? I agree, making sweeping rules based on basically one occurrence is odd, but if it’s happened once it’s bound to happen again.
There are so many other ways to be involved in sport, at your leisure, maybe a club team, or with a group of friends. Competition at the highest level is a privilege and the playing field should be even. Should I, an able bodied man, be able to swim at the Paralympics against people that are at a disadvantage to me? I know it’s not the best comparison, but what happened a few… Read more »
I can understand why some feel that women assigned female at birth feel slighted by trans women’s participation in sport. I think a measured and informed discussion about how to best include trans people in sports is good. If there was a way to balance inclusion and fairness for all that would be best.
But it’s foolish to think that policies like this exist in a vacuum. This executive order exists as a part of a broader agenda to curtail trans rights. From excluding gender affirming care under medicare, to demeaning trans people as pervs and groomers.
For that reason, I think this is stupid and backward.
Sounds nice, doesn’t it.
We’ll get there. It might take a while, but this won’t last forever.
Personally, I think what is fair is outright inclusion and integration of trans women into women’s sports. I think the only discussion worth having is how much gender affirming care/medical procedure has to be required before being allowed to compete.
Alas, that is probably a pipe dream for at least the next couple years.
For the record, I believe it is fully possible to be kind, caring and supportive of men and women with gender dysphoria and to support the trans community in may ways, but still feel strongly that biological men should never compete against biological women. And I believe that most who support legislation like this would feel the same. Sure, there are idiots and bigots out there who may dislike somebody based on religion, political slant, skin color or what they wear or want to be called, but day to day we all just want common sense and fairness for women who devote their lives to the sporting dream.
then why do all these bans include K-12 athletes?
Hell, even the NCAA’s own commercials tell me most of their athletes go pro in something other than sports.
what about trans men? What is the policy?
Should probably be the same. But in all honesty it tends not to be a fairness issue when women compete against men so it tends not to really find its way into the conversation. The fastest women in the world tend to be on the average upper end of a high school boy in most sports. Outliers exist obviously.
I feel like this is what most people don’t understand. Trans men (and women) are not like cisgender men and women physically. There are trans men winning bodybuilding competitions and professional boxing matches against cisgender men. Some have testosterone levels in the upper range of most men. Obviously they will not compete against women. Is the trump policy to allow transgender men to compete against their gender but not transgender women?
not in high level competitions. trans men cant compete with the elite of cis men and theres no reason to believe it will ever change