President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order aimed at preventing transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
“You’ve been waiting a long time for this. So have I,” the president told invited guests during a signing ceremony at the White House, adding that any entity deemed in violation of his order could lose federal funding. “It’s just all about common sense.”
“We will not allow men [to] beat up, injure and cheat our women and girls. From now on, women’s sports will be only for women,” Trump said, before later adding, “All of that ends today because, with this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”
The issue of transgender women competing in women’s sports became a major flashpoint for Trump, Republican lawmakers and voters during the 2024 election cycle.
Trump gave the order-signing event the full presidential treatment, assembling invited guests for an on-camera ceremony in the ornate East Room.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, a vocal opponent of including transgender women in women’s sports and spaces, was invited by Trump to speak before he signed the order. She declared that the president was “absolutely doing the right thing to save women and girls.”
The order would “protect the promise of Title IX,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier Wednesday. She said the document also would require the Justice Department to ignore the “previous administration’s illegal Title IX rewrite that would have dissolved single-sex spaces and opportunities,” while requiring actions against schools and sports associations that deny women such sports and locker room facilities, Leavitt said.
Spotted in the audience of invited guests were Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, both seen as potential contenders for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.
Much of the signing ceremony featured Trump calling out a long list of GOP members seated in the East Room.
A large group of young girls, some wearing sports uniforms, were positioned alongside a smattering of adults on risers behind Trump’s lectern.
The executive order comes after the House on Jan. 14 approved GOP-crafted legislation that would attempt to prohibit transgender women and girls from participating in sports for female students. It passed on a mostly party-line vote, 218-206.
The Republican-run Senate, however, has yet to take up the measure. Leavitt said Wednesday that the White House would welcome Senate passage — which would need 60 votes to move forward — but Republicans hold only 53 seats (and Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote) to 47 for the Democratic Caucus.
Trump on Wednesday cited the transgender debate as a major reason why voters last fall gave the GOP control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. On this and other issues, he said, Democrats “look like fools.”
The legislative fight over transgender care had been mostly limited to states before November’s election.
On the campaign trail, especially during the final weeks of the race, Trump focused on limiting gender-affirming care for transgender people. Meantime, top Republican senators last year launched inquiries into the legitimacy of the use of puberty blockers for minors.
Transgender activists have said they saw moves like Wednesday’s coming.
“We’re going to see attempts made to impact trans people’s ability to access health care at both the federal and state levels going forward,” Olivia Hunt, policy director at Advocates for Trans Equality, told CQ Roll Call in November, referring to potential GOP Congress and White House in 2025.
Ariel Cohen contributed to this report.
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