Trump signs executive order banning transgender women from women’s sports

SALT LAKE CITY — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to keep transgender females out of women’s sports.

The president signed the executive order Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press reported. The executive order would apply to any schools that use federal funding, including grade schools and universities.

“With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” Trump said at the executive order’s signing ceremony, the AP reported.

Becca Green, with Project Rainbow Utah, called this news unfortunate.

“Sports are a really good way for people to learn to work together (and) to learn life lessons,” she said. “So, to categorically ban one group of people from that, I think, is a mistake.”

Additionally, Green said there are already rules within the NCAA and within Olympic sports that regulate hormone levels.

“I think those hormone levels ensure fairness at high-level competition,” she said. “At lower levels of competition, I think sports are more about teamwork and comradery and I think it’s a solution in search of a problem.”

However, state Sen. Dan McCay, R-Salt Lake City, is celebrating the move.

“The fact that President Trump is going to extend that protection around the country, I feel like that’s a great win for women and women’s sports,” he said.

McCay said this executive order sounds like a continuation of what’s being done in Utah.

“[It makes] sure that around the country, that women are supported,” he said. “And that they have the right to compete in sports as Title IX is supposed to have created long ago.”

A similar law was passed in Utah in 2022, but after legal pushback, transgender girls are currently allowed to play women’s sports on a case-by-case basis.

Reminder to connect back to community

As Trump prepared to sign this executive order, Green said it is taking a “heavy emotional toll,” on the LGBTQ+ community.

She said a lot of people she’s been working with are “hurting… afraid and in pain.”

“I think, unfortunately, it’s a really common tactic to scapegoat the most vulnerable people when you’re trying to move forward on a particular agenda,” Green said. “I think queer people, immigrants, women, people of color, it’s just an all out assault on anybody who’s different… and it’s scary.”

Green encouraged young people in sports to remember “they are loved, they are valued and they have a place in our community.”

She said these political “attacks” are meant to drive people apart.

“It certainly is scary, but there are so many things we can be doing in our communities… to show up for trans people and support trans people,” Green said.

She also encouraged people to take a step back and find ways they can engage with their community and help people.

“We certainly want the government to take care of us, but there are so many methods of recourse and ways to build community outside of that,” she said. “I think it’s important to remember we have that option.”

Green said she wants people to get to know transgender people. Then, there could be a “more nuanced” conversation about transgender people in sports.