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By Monica Sager and Gabe Whisnant
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President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday that would prevent transgender athletes from competing in women's and girls' sports.
Why It Matters
After campaigning heavily about transgender issues, one of Trump's first executive orders declared that there are only two genders - "male and female." Last week, Trump signed another executive order instructing agencies to ensure that hospitals receiving federal research and education grants "end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children." He also signed an order to prevent transgender service members within the military.
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On Monday, New York Attorney General Letitia James informed hospitals that they would violate state law if they complied with an executive order from Trump, which aims to curtail federal funding for gender-affirming care for young people, would violate state law. While gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth is relatively uncommon, it has been the focus of intense political debate.
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What To Know
Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina sent Newsweek a statement saying she will stand next to Trump while he signs the Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports Executive Order on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m.
Mace has been a proponent of seeking to ban transgender women from using women's bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol.
"For too long, the Left has sacrificed women's rights on the altar of woke politics. Women's sports exist for a reason—because biological differences matter," Mace said in the statement sent to Newsweek. "No amount of activism, corporate pressure, or lies can erase reality—men are biologically different from women. This executive order restores fairness, upholds Title IX's original intent, and defends the rights of female athletes who have worked their whole lives to compete at the highest levels."
Trump made the idea of keeping "men out of women's sports" a key to his 2024 presidential campaign.
"We will keep men out of women's sports," Trump said at a convention in Arizona. "Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — male and female. It doesn't sound too complicated. Does it?"
During his appearance on the "Bussin' with the Boys" podcast, he called the idea of including transgender athletes in women's sports "ridiculous."
He also stated his side when he accepted the Republican nomination for president last July.
"We will not have men playing in women's sports, that will end immediately," he said at the time.
He has also stated that the transgender issues affect a "very small number of people."
With Trump's other executive orders about transgender rights, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CC) started to remove language around gender identity and sexual orientation.
House of Representative's Actions
The GOP-majority House passed a bill barring transgender student-athletes from female interscholastic and intercollegiate female sports in January. The vote fell mostly along party lines, with a 218-206 result.
The measure would amend Title IX and prohibit "a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls."
In November, Massachusetts Democratic Representative Seth Moulton faced backlash following his comments about transgender athletes, showing divisions within the Democratic Party on transgender issues.
In a New York Times article Moulton said Democrats "spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face." Leaders from the Democratic Party have now said Moulton is "playing politics."
He then told Newsweek that "no one issue" lost the Democrats the 2024 presidential election but that exit polling "shows that cultural issues played an outsized role."
"We lost, in part, because we shame and belittle too many opinions held by too many voters and that needs to stop," Moulton said at the time.
What People Are Saying
Representative Greg Steube (R-Florida), who sponsored the house bill: "In our culture and civilization we continue to be subjected to the perverse lie that there are more than two genders or that men can be women or women can be men. We must never let our country and the American way of life surrender to the immoral ideology."
Representative Syliva Garcia (D-Texas) after the House vote on X: "Larry Nasser and Jerry Sandusky would've loved the so-called 'Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act' that the GOP just passed.
"All it will do is make women and girls less safe by invading school locker rooms and subjecting children to invasive genital exams."
What's Next
The reported executive order would coincide with National Girls and Women in Sports Day on Wednesday.
More to follow.
Update: 2/4/25, 1:30 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
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