The Trump administration is set to implement several measures on Wednesday aimed at restricting transgender girls and women from participating in school sports, according to a White House official.
US President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order that directs federal agencies—including the Department of Justice and the Department of Education—to interpret Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, as barring transgender girls and women from competing in female sports, the official stated.
In addition, the White House will instruct the State Department to scrutinize visa applications from transgender individuals for potential “fraud” and plans to elevate the issue on the international stage, including at the United Nations, as well as within the private sector, the official added. The US will utilize “all of our authority and our ability” to enforce this order in relation to International Olympic Committee events hosted on US soil.
The official emphasized that the measures are designed to protect girls and women in schools, pointing to thousands of complaints from those worried about the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports. The approach is based on a narrow reading of Title IX, asserting that it is a sex-based law meant to protect individuals born as women rather than those assigned male at birth who undergo hormone treatment or surgery, the official explained.
Since taking office on January 20, the Trump administration has broadly targeted transgender rights. President Trump signed an earlier executive order that sought to delegitimize transgender identities by mandating that government employees refer only to “sex” rather than “gender” and declaring that sex is an “immutable biological reality” that cannot be altered through gender identity changes.
Other executive orders have attempted to prohibit transgender individuals from serving in the military and to end federal support for healthcare services related to gender transition.
While Trump’s supporters praise these moves as fulfilling campaign promises, critics argue that the president is overreaching his executive authority by restricting the rights of a small minority, who constitute just 0.6 percent of the US population over the age of 13, according to data from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
