Donald Trump’s executive order this week banning transgender women from women’s sports has already found its first victim: the NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association updated its rules Thursday to only allow people assigned female at birth to participate in women’s sports after Trump signed an executive order that directs the Education Department to withdraw federal funding from schools that allow transgender women and girls to compete on grounds of violating Title IX (a federal law that bans gender discrimination in college sports). The order flips the groundbreaking civil rights law around to discriminate against the less than 15 trans athletes who exist in the NCAA’s 530,000 student-athletes.
“In a few moments I’ll sign a historic executive order to ban men from competing in women’s sports, it’s about time,” Trump said during his order signing on Wednesday. “Under the Trump administration we will defend the proud tradition of female athletes and we will not allow men to beat up, injure and cheat our women and our girls. From now on women’s sports will be only for women.”
The Education Department will now begin investigating schools like the University of Pennsylvania, San José State University, and a Massachusetts high school athletic association over allegations that they have transgender students on their teams.
“4 executive orders now against trans people. He’s banned us from sports, the military, schools, and healthcare. Representatives are calling us slurs in Congress,” trans comedian Stacy Cay wrote on X. “So are y’all done yet? How much further do y’all plan to take this? And at what point will other people care?”
“The NCAA is an organization made up of 1,100 colleges and universities in all 50 states that collectively enroll more than 530,000 student-athletes,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a statement. “We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”
This is the same Charlie Baker who said last year in front of Congress that there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes active in the NCAA. This is a vicious attack on an already unrepresented, powerless minority group. Expect more of the same in the very near future.
The post Trump’s Anti-Trans Order Officially Hits the NCAA appeared first on New Republic.
