{"id":38611,"date":"2025-02-17T03:37:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T09:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=38611"},"modified":"2025-02-17T01:19:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T07:19:23","slug":"after-years-of-debate-trump-upends-trans-sports-landscape-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=38611","title":{"rendered":"After years of debate, Trump upends trans sports landscape with the stroke of a pen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s campaign promise to block<\/a> transgender women and girls from competing in female sports has opened up a slew of investigations of federally funded schools and athletics organizations since he signed an executive order<\/a> this month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Education Department has moved swiftly in another way, by urging associations<\/a> overseeing high school and college competitions to vacate awards and records held by transgender women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the person picked to lead the department, former wrestling executive Linda McMahon, reaffirmed at her Senate confirmation hearing<\/a> Thursday that \u201cI do not believe biological boys should be allowed to compete with girls in sports.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While for years, sports organizers and lawmakers have grappled with how to handle the issue of trans women and girls in female sports, advocates for trans athletes warn Trump\u2019s stark reversal of the transgender sports landscape could be defined by a rollback of acceptance and sustained legal clashes. The order is even having an impact beyond student-athletes and U.S. borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first of the litigation<\/a> came Wednesday, when a federal judge in New Hampshire ruled that two transgender high school students can challenge the constitutionality of Trump\u2019s order, \u201cKeeping Men Out of Women\u2019s Sports,\u201d as part of their lawsuit seeking to overturn a state law<\/a> that prohibits transgender players on girls\u2019 sports teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever in a million years would I think we\u2019d be suing the president of the United States of America,\u201d Amy Manzelli, the mother of one of the plaintiffs, Iris Turmelle, said Thursday. \u201cIris understands the gravity of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turmelle, 15, is seeking to try out for her school\u2019s tennis team this spring, while another student, Parker Tirrell, 16, was already playing on her school\u2019s soccer team. A preliminary injunction<\/a> is allowing the pair to compete while their case proceeds in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry Klementowicz, the deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, which is helping to represent the plaintiffs, said the expanded lawsuit maintains that the students are being discriminated against in violation of federal equal protection guarantees and their rights under Title IX, which prohibits bias in schools on the basis of sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Hampshire\u2019s Fairness in Women\u2019s Sports Act, which was signed into law in July, as well as Trump\u2019s executive order, \u201cexcludes, singles out, and discriminates against transgender students and insinuates that they are not deserving of the same educational opportunities as all other students,\u201d Klementowicz said in a statement.During Trump\u2019s first term, the Education Department released federal guidelines<\/a> on how to implement Title IX, particularly on the issue of sexual misconduct in schools. The rules gave students accused of misconduct added protections, including the presumption that they are innocent throughout the disciplinary process and the right to be provided all evidence collected against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration devised its own policies by interpreting \u201csex\u201d in Title IX as being inclusive of \u201cgender identity,\u201d allowing for the protection of transgender athletes who wanted to compete in sports aligned with their gender identity and not their sex assigned at birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, however, warned that he would reverse that once taking office. His executive order prohibiting \u201cgender ideology\u201d<\/a> explicitly states that sex means the \u201cimmutable biological classification as either male or female\u201d and \u201cdoes not include the concept of \u2018gender identity.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For K-12 schools and colleges that don\u2019t adhere to the Trump administration\u2019s interpretation of Title IX standards, it could mean the loss of federal funding, including grants to their educational programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While so far, no school at any level has had its federal funding rescinded, the Education Department has begun to investigate potential civil rights violations related to Trump\u2019s executive order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A day after it was signed, the department announced inquiries<\/a> at San Jose State University and the University of Pennsylvania as well as the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Jose State is being investigated over the participation of a player on the women\u2019s volleyball team, although the school has not confirmed the team has a transgender athlete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The review at the University of Pennsylvania involves Lia Thomas, a former student who in 2022 became the first trans woman to win<\/a> an NCAA swimming championship. Thomas graduated in 2022, but her participation is the subject of a lawsuit filed by several athletes last year<\/a> and another one this month by three former teammates suing the NCAA and others in an effort to have Thomas\u2019 swimming records repealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NCAA declined to comment, citing pending litigation, but said in a statement that it \u201cwill continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women\u2019s sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A day after Trump signed his executive order, NCAA President Charlie Baker announced the association was changing its policy<\/a> to allow only student-athletes assigned female at birth to participate in collegiate competitions. He said in a statement<\/a> that \u201cuniform eligibility standards would best serve today\u2019s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions,\u201d and that the order \u201cprovides a clear, national standard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationwide, the number of trans athletes competing in college sports is relatively small. While the exact number is unknown, Baker told congressional lawmakers in December that he was aware of fewer than 10 in the NCAA, which has more than 500,000 student-athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, the Education Department announced investigations of two more groups \u2014 the Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation \u2014 alleging that the state governing bodies plan to violate Trump\u2019s executive order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would remind these organizations that history does not look kindly on entities and states that actively opposed the enforcement of federal civil rights laws that protect women and girls from discrimination and harassment,\u201d Craig Trainor, the department\u2019s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minnesota State High School League, which has allowed transgender student-athletes to compete on a team that aligns with their gender identity since 2015, said in a statement<\/a> it would cooperate with the investigation while seeking \u201cclarification and direction\u201d from the state attorney general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The California Interscholastic Federation declined to comment on pending investigations, but said it does not collect data on transgender student-athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Trump\u2019s executive order, more than half of states already had measures in place to restrict trans athletes from playing on teams that align with their gender identities. Courts have blocked bans in four of the states: Arizona, Idaho, Utah and West Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elsewhere, the debate continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Indiana, a House education committee on Wednesday advanced a bill <\/a>that bans transgender women from competing on female college sports teams, similar to a ban in K-12 sports passed in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, all but one Democrat on Indiana\u2019s House education committee voted in favor of the college ban, but some in the party voiced their struggle with how supporting both athletes who were assigned female at birth and trans women and girls has become politicized, when previously sports bodies such as the NCAA had been in a position to govern themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to do any of this,\u201d said Rep. Ed DeLaney, a Democrat who voted for the bill. \u201cIt\u2019s overreach and virtue signaling, and it\u2019s just a waste of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s executive order appears to be having an influence beyond U.S. borders and school sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One week after it was signed, World Athletics, the international governing body of track and field, announced it would recommend placing athletes assigned female at birth who have higher testosterone levels under the same rules barring transgender athletes in female categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the International Boxing Association, a Russian-led boxing governing body that has been banished from the Olympics, cited Trump\u2019s order in an announcement last week<\/a> saying it would file criminal complaints against the International Olympic Committee for allowing boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, who were assigned female at birth and identify as women, to compete and win gold medals at the 2024 Paris Games. Trump has often misgendered the boxers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the signing ceremony for his trans sports executive order, the president was upfront about his intention of taking his fight against transgender athletic participation to the Olympics<\/a>. He said he wants the departments of State and Homeland Security to review policies around admitting male athletes into the U.S. \u201cseeking to participate in women\u2019s sports\u201d and the IOC to \u201cchange everything having to do with the Olympics and having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject\u201d ahead of the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It remains exceedingly rare for openly transgender athletes to compete in the Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s campaign promise to block transgender women and girls from competing in female sports has opened up a slew of investigations of federally funded schools and athletics organizations since he signed an executive order this month.  The Education Department has moved swiftly in another way, by urging associations overseeing high school and college competitions to vacate awards and records […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":38612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[20924,3306,1230],"class_list":["post-38611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-after","tag-sports","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38613,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38611\/revisions\/38613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}