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Trump vows to ban transgender athletes from women’s competitions

US President Donald Trump vows to protect women’s sports and the threats that type of politics creates for all athletes.

US President Donald Trump vows to protect women’s sports and the threats that type of politics creates for all athletes.
Julia Demaree Nikhinsonvia REUTERS

Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, and he is taking his first steps in shaping his political agenda through the use of his executive authority. The president has already signed or pledged to sign several executive orders affecting immigration, the economy, and even sports.

As the exclusion of transgender women and girls from sports becomes a political priority for certain factions within the Republican Party, the president has vowed to take action against these athletes. Though a minuscule subset of the population, the GOP’s focus on the issue highlights how the politics of division can be used to unify an electoral base. What remains to be seen is if this type of politics can sustain an electoral base. More or less, it has shown it is capable of winning two presidential elections, both times taking full control of the executive and legislative branches and losing it two years later to the Democrats. The performance of the Democrats is as lackluster, now trotting off to the opposition where they might be able to attract enough voters back over the next two years.

The importance being shown to the issue of women’s sports and the participation of transgender athletes by the incoming Trump administration and the wider Republican political and media apparatus is indicative of the power these issues are presumed to hold within the base. All of this focus, when in reality, only 1 percent of Americans identify as transgender, and an even smaller percentage aspire to compete in sports at elite levels. The issue affects a very small percentage of the population; despite this, Trump made banning transgender athletes from women’s sports a central campaign slogan, specifically targeting transgender women in school sports.

The president insisted that “men must be kept out of women’s sports.” A month prior, Trump promised to “put an end to the transgender madness,” declaring that “it will be official policy that there are only two genders, male and female.” Following his re-election, he reaffirmed that banning transgender girls from women’s sports would be a top priority from day one.

Donald Trump during his inauguration.
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Donald Trump during his inauguration.Brian SnyderREUTERS

The threat these policies pose to intersex and transgender athletes, and even cis-gender women

The hyperfocus on the issue, while energizing the party’s base, inflicts tangible harm on athletes simply seeking to compete. Transgender women winning against cisgender women at elite levels is exceedingly rare. But the fears that this is a persistent issue were on full display during the most recent Olympics, when Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was falsely accused of being transgender, prompting an outpouring of hate. Italian boxer Angela Carini, who made the initial comments, later apologized for the backlash Khelif endured.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who won the gold medal in the women's welterweight boxing at the Olympics, holds her medal upon her arrival at the airport in Algiers, Algeria  August 12, 2024. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina
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Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who won the gold medal in the women's welterweight boxing at the Olympics, holds her medal upon her arrival at the airport in Algiers, Algeria August 12, 2024. REUTERS/Ramzi BoudinaRamzi BoudinaREUTERS

The case is just one of many examples of how a system of categorization based on two genders, creates certain problems when more and more people seek to compete. Denying the complexity of gender and rigidly upholding the binary, as Khelif’s experience illustrates, also harms cisgender women who compete in the women’s division. For example, a U.S. long-distance swimmer and gold medalist in the Katie Ledecky at the 2024 Games faced accusations of being transgender, with online vigilantes circulating so-called “evidence.” This denial of talent, driven by the ideology of online commentators and amplified by politicians parroting their rhetoric, undermines all women in sports. Suddenly, their womanhood is questioned too.

Gold medallist US' Katie Ledecky poses with her medal on the podium of the women's 1500m freestyle swimming event during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, on July 31, 2024. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
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Gold medallist US' Katie Ledecky poses with her medal on the podium of the women's 1500m freestyle swimming event during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, on July 31, 2024. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)JONATHAN NACKSTRANDAFP

When one creates new rules that rely on rigid gender categorizations, the cases that don’t fit are politicized and made to be the aggressor in their narrative. For athletes who do not have a XX and XY chromosomal makeup, the binary can present immense challenges if one’s genetic makeup can be made into an advantage over those with a XX written into their genes.

Existing Frameworks and Future Implications

For transgender athletes, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has established guidelines allowing individual federations to regulate participation. Federations like World Athletics, World Aquatics, UCI, and World Rugby have implemented bans on transgender athletes in elite sports. Others, such as the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), impose restrictions, barring athletes who transitioned after puberty from competing in lower categories.

As these debates unfold, it’s clear that policies targeting transgender athletes risk marginalizing a small, already vulnerable population while raising broader questions about fairness, equity, and the role of diversity in sports that largely remain unanswered and un-productively debated.