Trump is winning for women and girls by preserving Title IX's original intent | Opinion
Bravo to all the young women who have been brave enough to stand against injustice in women's sports. And bravo to President Trump for standing up for them.
One of Donald Trump’s most effective campaign ads ahead of the November presidential election proclaimed this: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris had previously voiced support for taxpayer-funded gender-transition surgeries for transgender prisoners, and Trump capitalized on the absurdity of that position.
Trump also campaigned on overturning the Biden-Harris administration’s misguided mission to undermine the entire premise of Title IX by prioritizing gender over biological sex in the law that prohibits discrimination based on sex at schools that take federal money.
The president didn’t waste time fulfilling his campaign promises to women and girls.
Trump signed on Feb. 5 an executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” to prevent transgender athletes from choosing to play on female teams and enter private spaces like locker rooms.
In recent years, female athletes have spoken out and filed lawsuits in regard to how unfair – and even unsafe – it is for them to be forced to compete against biological males.
“From now on, women’s sports will be only for women,” Trump said at the signing, where he was aptly surrounded by cheering girls and women.
Trump's order has immediate impact for female athletes
Trump’s executive order was not merely performative. It had immediate results.
The next day, the National Collegiate Athletic Association issued a statement officially changing its policy on transgender athletes. The leading U.S. college athletic organization will now limit “competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”
“The NCAA is an organization made up of 1,100 colleges and universities in all 50 states that collectively enroll more than 530,000 student-athletes,” NCAA President Charlie Baker stated. “We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”
The NCAA’s previous policy was much more lenient to transgender student participation and had led to a high-profile lawsuit last year by multiple female athletes who believed their rights had been violated, in part by having to compete against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. That lawsuit is still ongoing.
Former collegiate swimmer turned conservative activist Riley Gaines is the lead plaintiff in that lawsuit, and she’s pleased with the NCAA’s change – and grateful for Trump’s intervention.
“I’m thrilled to see the NCAA taking steps to align with Donald J. Trump’s recent Executive Order,” Gaines, an ambassador for the Independent Women's Forum, said in a statement. “While it’s unfortunate that it took women losing opportunities, facing exploitation in locker rooms, and suffering injuries for leaders to recognize the importance of single-sex spaces, this is still a victory worth celebrating.”
More work must be done to secure women's rights
While Trump’s order sets an important new tone, the president must continue working with Congress to ensure that these protections for female sports are crystalized into law. The House has already passed a bill that would do just that, and the Senate shouldn’t delay taking action. Encouragement from Trump would help.
The courts also are standing for women’s rights. Last month, a judge overturned former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rewrite that undermined biological sex.
The day before Trump signed his executive order, another group of female athletes filed a lawsuit against Harvard University, the NCAA, the University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League Council of Presidents.
The plaintiffs are three former University of Pennsylvania swimmers who were teammates of Thomas, the transgender swimmer. The women say that they were discriminated against, and that they were “repeatedly emotionally traumatized” for having to share locker rooms with Thomas.
Bravo to all these young women who have been brave enough to stand against this injustice and to bring it to the public’s attention.
And bravo to Trump for standing up for them.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at Paste BN. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques