On Wednesday, President Donald Trump will sign an executive order aimed at banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports in schools—the latest in a flurry of executive orders since he took office less than a month ago.
The executive action, called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” is expected to be signed at 3 p.m. ET at the White House—on National Women and Girls in Sports Day. The text of the order hasn’t yet been released by Trump’s team, but a statement by Rep. Nancy Mace (R., S.C.), who will attend the signing, said it “reaffirms a fundamental principle: women and girls should not have their privacy, opportunities, scholarships, or safety jeopardized by radical gender ideology.”
During his presidential campaign, Trump said he would implement a ban on trans athletes from women’s sports.
The executive order applies to all educational institutions, from kindergarten through college. NCAA President Charlie Baker has previously testified that there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes participating in NCAA sports out of about 510,000.
“Our hearts break for the trans youth who will no longer be able to know the joy of playing sports as their full and authentic selves,” Athlete Ally, an advocacy group for LGBTQ+ rights in sports, said in a statement to Front Office Sports ahead of the executive order’s signing. “We’ve known this day was likely to occur for a long time, as this administration continues to pursue simple solutions to complex issues, often resulting in animus towards the most marginalized communities in our country.”
An NCAA representative did not immediately provide comment about the expected order, but Baker said during a House hearing in December that the governing body would follow federal law—and that “clarity on this issue at the federal level would be very helpful.”
The NCAA’s current policy is that each sport will follow the rules set by its corresponding Olympic national governing body, which often revolve around testosterone levels and other biological metrics (though scientists disagree on how much metrics like testosterone levels actually impact sports performance). The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), another college sports governing body, voted to impose a blanket ban on transgender athlete participation in women’s sports in August 2024.
The executive action could also impact existing lawsuits attacking the NCAA, schools, and conferences for allowing transgender women to participate in women’s sports. The Independent Council on Women’s Sports, which is funding three of them (against the NCAA, San Jose State, and Ivy League), sees the executive order as an indication that Trump’s administration will get involved in the litigation.
“We expect the EO to lead directly to intervention in ICONS’ lawsuits by the U.S. Justice Department and to an immediate change in the NCAA’s harshly discriminatory policies,” ICONS co-founder Marshi Smith told FOS in a statement. “President Trump’s decisive Executive Order upholds the rights of women and girls and confirms the unlawfulness of the NCAA’s transgender eligibility policies.”
Meanwhile, House Republicans have also passed a bill that would alter the language of Title IX, the statute governing gender equity in educational institutions, to ban trans athletes from women’s sports. The bill—which would effectively accomplish the same thing as Trump’s order—is awaiting a vote in the Senate.
Executive orders can be reversed by new presidents, however, as well as face legal challenges. So it’s unclear how schools and the NCAA will navigate potential changes or reversals.
Editors’ Note: This is a developing story and will be updated.
