President Donald Trump is poised to sign an executive order on Wednesday prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, according to top administration officials, fulfilling a pledge made during his 2024 campaign.
According to a White House document on the upcoming executive order obtained by AWN, the order will establish broad mandates on sex and sports policy and direct federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, to interpret federal Title IX rules as prohibiting transgender girls and women from participating in female sports categories.
The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” according to sources, will require immediate enforcement, including against schools and athletic associations that “deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms,” and will direct state attorneys general to identify best practices for enforcing the mandate.
According to a senior administration source, the White House anticipates that after the order is issued, sports organizations such as the NCAA would adjust their regulations to comply with it.
“We’re a national governing body, and we follow federal law,” NCAA President Charlie Baker told Republican senators during a hearing in December. “Clarity on this issue at the federal level would be very helpful.”
Trump is likely to sign an executive order on Wednesday afternoon at a ceremony attended by players, coaches, and activists who have fought against transgender participation in women’s sports, according to sources. More than 60 people, including former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, will attend the event.
“We want to take actions to affirmatively protect women’s sports,” deputy assistant to the president and senior policy strategist May Mailman told AWN. She added that the executive order is intended to further overturn Biden-era policies that required schools and athletic organizations to treat gender identity and sex as equivalent. She stated that a court judgment concluded that such regulations were unnecessary, and that the president’s executive order would expressly prohibit them.
Trump’s executive order would promote discrimination and harassment, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a statement Tuesday.
“This order could expose young people to harassment and discrimination, emboldening people to question the gender of kids who don’t fit a narrow view of how they’re supposed to dress or look,” Robinson told CNN. “Playing sports teaches you the value of collaboration, passion, and perseverance. And for many kids, sports are about finding a place to belong. We should desire it for all children, not partisan measures that make life difficult for them.”
Mailman stated that the executive order’s objective was “not to ensure that everyone conforms to their sex stereotype while playing sports,” but to “protect women’s sports,” and that choices such as co-ed divisions would be accessible.
If institutions do not comply, the White House has warned that they would not only lose federal money but also suffer legal consequences.
“If schools don’t comply, it’s not just that they’re at risk of DOJ-based actions,” Mailman told reporters. “Title Nine has a private right of action component, so if schools violate the rule and face litigation from their female students, the consequences will be more than just losing federal cash. “These are multimillion-dollar lawsuits.”
The Daily Wire originally reported that Trump will sign the executive order on Wednesday.
According to the document detailing the order, the executive order also directs the Secretary of State to advocate for changes within the International Olympic Committee to maintain single-sex competition and the Department of Homeland Security to review visa policies to prevent transgender women from identifying as female, allowing them to compete in women’s sports.
According to the memo, the directive would also require private sporting bodies to attend an in-person White House meeting to hear firsthand testimonies from female athletes.
“The Executive Order calls for the convening of private sporting bodies in the White House to hear, in person, the stories of female athletes who suffer life-long injuries, who have been silenced and forced to shower with men, and whose hard work has been cast aside due to the biological advantage of males,” according to the article.
The decree is Trump’s most forceful move yet toward fulfilling one of his key campaign pledges about transgender athletes in women’s sports.
Trump issued an executive order this week limiting gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of 19.
The order would restrict medical institutions that receive federal funding from providing such care, including puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgeries, and would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “take all appropriate actions to end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”
