02-11-2025
A new executive order denies federal funds to schools that allow transgender women to compete on girls’ and women’s sports teams. The Education Department must notify schools that allowing transgender women to compete on female teams violates Title IX. This violation of Title IX provides the basis for removing federal funds. According to the order, the alleged “[w]ar on women’s sports is over.”
The NCAA changed its transgender athletic participation policies in response to the new order. Following these changes, only women born female may compete in women’s sports. Athletes assigned male at birth may “practice with women’s teams and receive benefits such as medical care while practicing.” Transgender athletes previously allowed to compete in women’s sports will no longer be permitted to do so. After the new order, the Education Department began investigating the University of Pennsylvania and a Massachusetts high school because they both consented to have transgender female students play on a women’s team. Of the over 500,000 athletes that compete across the NCAA’s three divisions, only 10 of them are transgender.
School districts across the country are trying to figure out how to handle the direction to limit transgender individuals. The Education Department is investigating a Denver school district because it has an all-gender bathroom (The Washington Post). Another executive order directed the Bureau of Prisons to move incarcerated transgender women to men’s prisons. However, a district court issued a temporary injunction stopping it from happening to some inmates because the order “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow” and likely violated the Constitution’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment.