President Donald Trump signed an executive order that prevents transgender women from competing in female sports categories.
The order provides guidance, regulations, and legal interpretations, and will enlist the Department of Education to investigate high schools that violate the rule.
Republicans say it restores fairness to sports, but LGBT advocacy and human rights organizations have described the measure as discriminatory.
The order, which takes effect immediately, broadly covers high schools, universities, and grassroots sports.
Several sports governing bodies, including swimming, athletics, and golf, have banned transgender women from competing in the elite female category if they have gone through male puberty.Transgender women are banned from participating in major golf tournaments
The government stated that the U.S. will do everything it can to prevent transgender athletes from competing against women in competitions of the International Olympic Committee that take place on American soil.
President Trump specified that the order includes the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
He said he would deny visas to transgender Olympic athletes attempting to visit the U.S. to compete in the Los Angeles Games.
Trump declared that “the war in women’s sports is over,” stating that during the Los Angeles Games, “my administration will not stand by watching men defeat and assault female athletes.”
Less than 1% of the population over 13 years old in the U.S. is transgender, according to a study by the UCLA Williams Institute, and the number participating in sports is even smaller.
On Trump’s first day in office, January 20, he signed another executive order directing the federal government to officially define sex as only male or female.Trump’s ban may be difficult to enforce
The current options for enforcing the ban range from looking at birth certificates, which can be altered, to inspecting the bodies of children, an alternative that most would consider unpleasant at best.
“School sports bans against trans individuals are hard to enforce because they rely on sex testing and body policing for implementation and enforcement,” Chris Mosier, a transgender athlete and founder of transathlete.com, a website about school policies related to transgender athletes, told Reuters.
“Increased scrutiny on athletes’ bodies causes serious harm to all women and girls who are perceived as ‘more masculine’ for being queer, intersex, or for being misaligned with narrow standards of femininity,” Mosier continued.Sources: BBC and Reuters