It started back in February of 2025. Donald Trump walked triumphantly into the White House to serve his second term as the President of the United States. In the first few days of his “rule,” Trump went to work. Signing executive orders left, right, and center, banning anything and everything he didn’t like. On February 5, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” at an afternoon signing ceremony in the East Room, surrounded by dozens of women and some young girls in athletic uniforms.
“With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” the president proclaimed proudly to the awe-struck young girls. Although the name of the executive order and the language used throughout suggest that the order is about “men,” it is clear from the context that the order refers to transgender girls and women. For context, this executive order came at a time when Trump’s administration had already sought to target transgender rights through executive action, most of which are facing legal challenges.
This order states, “it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities…and oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly.” As a result of this executive order, on February 6, 2025, the National Collegiate Athletics Association changed its policy for transgender athletes by limiting competition in women’s sports only to athletes assigned female at birth, which went into effect immediately.
But why stop there, when the world is your oyster?
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Transgender Women Athletes Banned From Olympics
The International Olympic Committee handed a huge win to the conservatives and transphobes all over the world. Transgender women athletes are now excluded from women’s events at the Olympics after the IOC agreed to a new eligibility policy that aligns with US President Donald Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
The IOC didn’t explicitly say it was caving in to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. It maintained its official rhetoric of “protecting fairness, safety, and integrity in the female category.” However, the ban is consistent with Trump’s malicious targeting of transgender people throughout his tenure. The White House lauded the decision and was quick to take credit for it.
Given the uproar over transgender athletes, one might assume that trans women are routinely competing at the Olympics. However, according to a 2026 Associated Press report, “It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level.” Moreover, no transgender women competed in the 2024 Olympics.
So, basically, an international institution banned a certain community that has little to no representation in that organization to “protect fairness and integrity?” Hardly! The ban is a clear indicator that it is not about female sports but about feeding the collective Trump-led attack on trans people, and the patriarchal policing of outdated gender-based societal roles.
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This Isn’t About Women Or Sports
In the MAGA echo-chamber, even those who are biologically born as female are not woman enough if they don’t live up to Western conventions of femininity. For instance, look at the curious case of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting. Both of whom won gold medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Instead of receiving praise, they found themselves at the center of MAGA’s gender policing when Trump falsely claimed they were men, solely based on their appearance.
One crucial thing to point out is that in its recent announcement, the IOC didn’t just ban transgender athletes, but also mandated genetic testing for women who compete in the Olympics or any other IOC events. The aim is to ensure that the athletes were, in fact, born biologically female. Medical experts have rejected such testing as notoriously unreliable.
The practice is a callback to the barbaric purity culture that is forced upon the women, even if it is wrapped in pretty words. The IOC’s genetic testing of women is a modern-day version of the misogynistic custom of “virginity” testing that is still prevalent in some countries today. It goes back to a time when bodily autonomy was reserved strictly for men, and women had to prove purity.
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