The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports.
The committee says it has an “obligation to comply” with President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February.
A new policy was announced on Monday. On the USOPC website, Trump’s executive order is referenced.
All funds will be rescinded from organizations that allow transgender athlete participation in women’s sports, the website specified.
“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes say in a letter. “Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women. All National Governing Bodies are required to update their applicable policies in alignment.”
The National Women’s Law Center has publicly condemned this: “By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes”, says CEO Fatima Goss Graves.
This doesn’t just apply to elite levels of sports — it may change rules at local sports clubs or any registered grassroots association.
This has been a topic of debate at both state and federal levels and something Trump promised to address back when he was running for president.
He still hasn’t followed through on other promises, from the big – mediating peace between Russia and Ukraine – to the less urgent – the Epstein file.
But public discontent and impatience with the hemming and hawing about Epstein documents has amplified in recent days, and the subject of sports seems to largely pale in comparison to the American public.
Trump himself called it an “absolutely ridiculous subject.”
In practice, anyone who went through male puberty is barred from performing as a female.
