Trump bans transgender girls, women from female sports teams; CA law disagrees

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An action by the Trump administration is sending shockwaves through the world of high school and college athletics.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Wednesday banning transgender women and girls from college women’s and high school girls’ sports teams. Schools who disobey this order risk losing federal funding.

“All executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall review grants to educational programs and, where appropriate, rescind funding to programs that fail to comply with the policy established in this order,” the text says.

The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) governs high school sports in the state. A spokesperson tells ABC10 that CIF plans on continuing to follow California law, which allows athletes to play on a sports team consistent with their gender identity.

“The CIF provides students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete in education-based experiences in compliance with California law [Education Code section 221.5. (f)] which permits students to participate in school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, consistent with the student’s gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the student’s records,” a spokesperson told ABC10 in an emailed statement.

Meanwhile, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is taking a different approach.

In a statement Wednesday, NCAA president Charlie Baker said the organization’s Board of Governors “is reviewing the executive order and will take necessary steps to align NCAA policy in the coming days, subject to further guidance from the administration.”

“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,” Baker said. “To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”

The NCAA is an organization made up of 1,100 colleges and universities in all 50 states, Baker said, that collectively enroll more than 530,000 student-athletes. In a statement at a Congressional hearing last month, according to The Athletic, Baker said fewer than 10 of those athletes are openly transgender.

“These trans sports bans are based in transphobia and not based in actual research or science,” said Alexis Sanchez, deputy chief program officer of advocacy at the Sacramento LGBT Community Center. “We believe that kids should have the right to play with their friends, regardless of the sex or the gender…Taking that away from people is going to have really, really bad impacts.”

President Trump’s executive order – called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” – says, “In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports. This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”

By “men,” Trump is referring to trans women and girls.

“It is seeking to erase transgender people,” Sanchez said.

She says Trump’s executive order is disappointing but not surprising, with anti-trans sentiment growing throughout the nation in recent years, including Trump’s executive order signed his first day in office, declaring the federal government will only recognize two genders: male and female.

“For transgender youth within the Sacramento region or within California, we’re not entirely sure how these rules will apply, and I think we’re poised to see some battles between the state guidelines and the federal guidelines,” Sanchez said. “I hope to see that California’s non-discrimination protections stand up. But if transgender youth are feeling the stress of feeling like their community is under attack, the Sacramento LGBT Community Center offers support groups and supportive services to people who are going through a tough time right now.”

More information on those support services is HERE on the Sacramento LGBT Community Center website.

Citing Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, Trump – in Wednesday’s executive order – is ordering enforcement actions be taken against schools that require female students “to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males,” saying any K-12 school or college disobeying this risks losing federal funding.

Constitutional expert Leslie Jacobs is Anthony Kennedy Professor of Law at University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law.

“There will be constitutional challenges to what the president’s trying to do,” Jacobs said. “We’re talking about Congress’ power and the president’s power.”

ABC10 asked her if Trump has the power to take away school funding, since it is Congress with the so-called ‘power of the purse.’

“Congress is the one who appropriates money for particular purposes,” Jacobs said. “The president then implements the law through an agency – all the agencies that he controls…but he is required to spend the money that Congress appropriates.”

In the case of Trump’s ban on transgender women on women’s sports teams, she said, Trump citing Title IX makes it about his interpretation of existing law.

“One of the statutes that Congress has written is Title IX, which says: no discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds. And so the focus of the trans athlete executive order is an interpretation of Congress’ statute: what the meaning of ‘sex discrimination’ is,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs adds Trump is making the case cisgender female athletes are the ones being discriminated against when a school allows transgender women and girls on those teams. The Biden administration made the opposite argument: barring trans athletes amounted to discrimination.

“The president can adopt an interpretation about what Title IX means, and that’s what he’s trying to do,” Jacobs said. “The thing that is a question and that could stand in his way is the fact that the Supreme Court has interpreted ‘sex discrimination’ in Title VII – the employment statute – to include discrimination based upon gender identity. And so it’s a different statute. Who knows how the Supreme Court would go, but that would have to be decided whether it is appropriate to interpret Title IX in this way – or ‘sex discrimination’ this way.”

Making this change through an executive order could also be challenged, she said.

“Yes, the president can influence the interpretation of a statute and what the Department of Education does and how it spends its money – but he probably can’t do it just by signing an executive order,” Jacobs said. “What he has to do is, he has to order the agency to go through a rule-making process, because there’s something called an Administrative Procedure Act – again, another statute written by Congress – and so the agency has to follow the procedures in that statute in order to adopt a different meaning and implement it on educational institutions. So, at the very least, this challenge will happen and would likely slow down the ability for the administration to implement this.”

She anticipates this will be challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Department of Education announced it’s investigating two universities and an athletic association for reports of them allowing trans women on female sports teams. One of those schools is San Jose State University, for allegedly allowing a trans woman onto the volleyball team.