U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee will comply with Trump’s ban on trans women in women’s sports
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee will enforce President Trump’s ban on transgender women competing in women’s sports.
The updated 27-page document titled “U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Policy” was published Friday and appeared on the USOPC’s website Monday and failed to make any reference to the word “transgender.”
USOPC officials said that they were “committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport” by complying with Executive Order 14201 and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act.
The update would “ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment,” it stated.
Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order was published in February. Since then, the president has continued to slam numerous transgender athletes competing in the U.S.
At the time of signing the order, he defended the order as a means to ending “the dangerous and unfair participation of men in women’s sports” and pledged to take “immediate action” against schools and associations that “denied women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms,” according to a White House document shared with The Independent.
Moreover, a letter from CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes, requested by CNN, revealed that the USOPC had “engaged in a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials” since Trump issued the order.
Adding, “As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations.”
The committee said that the changes align with the Ted Stevens Act, which “reinforces [their] mandated responsibility to promote athlete safety and competitive fairness.”
Ted Stevens, a U.S Senator for over 40 years, signed the Amateur Sports Act in 1978 to establish the U.S. Olympic Committee and National Governing Bodies for each Olympic sport.
Twenty years later, it was revised to reflect that amateurism was no longer a requirement of the Olympics and to include the Paralympics.
All governing bodies must now obey the USOPC’s new guidance, which is now highlighted at the top of the USOPC webpage on “Transgender Athlete Participation in Sport.”
Previously, the organization had sought “to rely on real data and science-based evidence rather than ideology” in determining the eligibility of transgender athletes.
It stressed that they made “science‑based decisions, sport by sport and discipline by discipline.”
The stance of not recognising transgender athletes in women’s sports has long been peddled by Trump and MAGA during his time in office and before, during his presidential race.
In June, he made a remark on the matter while male players from Italian soccer giants Juventus stood behind him, posing for photos as part of their Club World Cup tour.
He has also honed in on several specific cases across the U.S., including launching an investigation into a Connecticut school system over its transgender athletic policy.
In March, the president launched a broadside against Maine’s Governor Janet Mills for refusing to ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, threatening, “You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
