GLAAD says Trump’s anti-trans sport order has ‘zero credibility protecting women and girls’

GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has released a statement in light of President Donald Trump’s latest anti-trans executive order banning trans women from participating in sports. The group said the order has “zero credibility protecting women and girls”. 

On Wednesday (5 February), Trump adhered to his campaign promise and signed the executive order banning trans women from competing in women’s sporting events. The order provides guidance, regulations and legal interpretations, and requires the Department of Education to investigate high schools which are thought to not comply. 

The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”, was signed on National Girls and Women in Sports Day and goes into effect immediately and includes high school, university and grassroots sports events.

LGBTQ+ media advocacy organisation GLAAD said that the order “smears an entire group of Americans, but does not change the law or the facts”. 

“All women and girls, including transgender women and girls, should be welcome to play sports if they want, make decisions about their own bodies, be hired for jobs they are qualified for, and be free from lawless attacks by elected officials,” the statement read.

“Anti-LGBTQ politicians with a record of abusing and silencing women and stripping their health care have zero credibility in any conversation about protecting women and girls,” it continued in the statement. “Every American should demand that so-called leaders stop attacking vulnerable people and start doing their jobs solving actual problems.”

The order stated that trans women’s and girls’ participation in women and girls’ sports is “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports”.

It also stated that under Title IX –  a landmark piece of civil rights legislation – “educational institutions receiving Federal funds cannot deny women an equal opportunity to participate in sports”. 

Introduced in 1972, Title IX protects people from sex-based discrimination in education programmes or activities that receive federal financial assistance and is best known for ensuring gender equality in college sports.

In recent months and years, interpretations of the scope of Title IX have been hotly contested in the context of trans inclusion in sports, particularly after the Biden administration’s update to the legislation – first proposed in 2022 – which aimed to provide explicit protections for LGBTQ+ pupils and prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In response, several Republican-controlled states vowed to reject the law, suing the Biden administration and labelling the legislation “illegal, undemocratic and divorced from reality” and claiming it puts “women at risk”, with the US Supreme Court stating in August 2024 the changed definitions cannot be enforced in 26 states where legal challenges are ongoing.

At the start of this year, Republicans sought to define Title IX protections solely based on biological sex in their rules package for the 119th Congress.

South Carolina representative Nancy Mace – who initiated the US Capitol’s trans bathroom ban – previously commented on the now-signed executive order: “This executive order restores fairness, upholds Title IX’s original intent, and defends the rights of female athletes who have worked their whole lives to compete at the highest levels.”

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