President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued another executive order taking aim at the transgender community, this time focusing on eligibility for sports participation.

In a signing ceremony for “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” in the East Room of the White House, the president proclaimed “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”

Despite the insistence by Trump and Republicans that trans women and girls have a biological advantage in sports over cisgender women and girls, the research has been inconclusive, at best.

A study in the peer reviewed Sports Medicine journal found “no direct or consistent research” pointing to this conclusion. A different review in 2023 found that post-pubertal differences are “reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy.”

Other critics of efforts to exclude trans student athletes have pointed to the small number of people who are impacted. Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, testified last year that fewer than 10 of the NCAA’s 522,000+ student athletes identify as trans.

The Trump-Vance administration has reversed course from the Biden-Harris administration’s policy on Title IX rules barring sex-based discrimination.

“If you’re going to have women’s sports, if you’re going to provide opportunities for women, then they have to be equally safe, equally fair, and equally private opportunities, and so that means that you’re going to preserve women’s sports for women,” a White House official said prior to the issuance of the order.

Former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules, which went into effect last year, clarified that pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The White House official indicated that the administration will consider additional guidance, regulations, and interpretations of Title IX, as well as exploring options to handle noncompliance by threatening federal funding for schools and education programs.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump “does expect the Olympic Committee and the NCAA to no longer allow men to compete in women’s sports.”

One of the first legislative moves by the new Congress last month was House Republicans’ passage of the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which would ban trans women and girls from participating in competitive athletics.

The bill is now before the U.S. Senate, where Republicans have a three-seat majority but would need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order barring gender-affirming health care for minors, the latest action by the newly seated administration that takes aim at the rights and protections of transgender Americans.

The executive order, which prohibits the federal government from engaging in activities to “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” trans medicine for patients younger than 19, is based on arguments that these treatments lead to financial hardship and regret later in life.

In reality, scientific and medical organizations publish and maintain clinical practice guidelines on gender-affirming care that are based on hundreds of peer reviewed studies assessing the relative risks and benefits associated with each intervention.

“Everyone deserves the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions for themselves and their families — no matter your income, zip code, or health coverage,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “This executive order is a brazen attempt to put politicians in between people and their doctors, preventing them from accessing evidence-based health care supported by every major medical association in the country.”

Robinson added, “It is deeply unfair to play politics with people’s lives and strip transgender young people, their families, and their providers of the freedom to make necessary health care decisions. Questions about this care should be answered by doctors — not politicians — and decisions must rest with families, doctors, and the patient.”

HRC noted that in practical terms, the federal government will effectuate this policy by taking such actions as “removing coverage for gender-affirming care from federal health insurance policies, modifying requirements under the Affordable Care Act, and preventing hospitals or other medical providers who accept Medicare or Medicaid, or who receive federal funding for research or education, from providing gender-affirming care of any kind to people under the age of 19.”

“This executive order to deny young transgender people access to the evidence-based, medically-necessary and often lifesaving care they need is an attempt by Donald Trump to insert himself into doctors’ offices across the country and override their medical judgment,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus.

“Decisions about a young person’s healthcare belong with the patient, their families, and their doctors,” he added. “Politicians should not be overriding the private medical decisions of any person, period.”

Groups that work with LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers have condemned the Trump-Vance administration over its immigration policies.

President Donald Trump shortly after his Jan. 20 inauguration signed several immigration-specific executive orders. They include:

• Declaring a national emergency on the Southern border

• Suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

• Ending birthright citizenship under the 14th amendment. (U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, who Ronald Reagan appointed, in a Jan. 23 ruling described the directive as “blatantly unconstitutional.”)

Trump has reinstated the Migrant Protection Protocols program, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced asylum seekers to pursue their cases in Mexico. The White House on Jan. 20 also shut down the CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) One app that asylum seekers used to schedule appointments that would allow them to enter the U.S. at ports of entry.

A press release the Department of Homeland Security issued on Jan. 21 issued notes the Trump-Vance administration has ended “the broad abuse of humanitarian parole” for undocumented migrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CBP agents can also make arrests in schools, churches, and other so-called “sensitive” areas.

An ICE press release notes the agency, the U.S. Marshals Service and other federal agencies on Sunday “began conducting enhanced targeted operations” in Chicago “to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.”

ICE on X said its agents arrested 956 people on Sunday across the country. NBC Washington reported ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations personnel on Sunday morning were at a Fairfax County apartment building, but it is not clear whether they took anyone into custody.

A second press release that ICE issued on Jan. 23 notes the arrest of an undocumented Mexican man in Houston who was wanted for the “rape of a child” in Veracruz, Mexico. Mexican authorities took him into custody after ICE officials returned him to his country of origin.

“We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home while, at the same time, stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad,” said Trump in his inaugural address.
 
“It fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens, but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions, that have illegally entered our country from all over the world,” he added.

Immigration Equality Executive Director Aaron C. Morris on Jan. 22 said Trump’s “agenda to detain, deport, and dehumanize people is an affront to fundamental American values.”

“The executive orders will cost lives, separate families, and trap queer people in extreme danger,” he said. “They are an overt, illegal power grab with mortal consequences for LGBTQ people seeking safety in the United States.”

Then-Vice President Kamala Harris and others in the previous administration acknowledged violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity is among the “root causes” of migration from the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. (Morris is among the activists who sharply criticized the Biden-Harris administration over policies they said restricted LGBTQ people and people with HIV from seeking asylum in the U.S.)

“The Trump administration’s recent executive orders targeting asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants while escalating attacks on the LGBTIQ community are unethical, un-American, and jeopardize countless lives,” Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration Executive Director Steve Roth told the Washington Blade in a statement. “By barring asylum and suspending refugee programs, these policies strip away fundamental human rights and protections, directly threatening LGBTIQ refugees who already endure persecution, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and systematic inequality.”

Familia: TQLM, an organization that advocates on behalf of transgender and gender non-conforming immigrants, was even more pointed in a statement it posted to its Facebook page shortly after Trump’s inauguration.

“On Jan. 20, we resist,” said Familia: TQLM. “This is not a day to give into fear, but a day to reclaim our power.”

“Trans and queer immigrant people have endured through regimes that sought to erase, silence, and destroy us,” it added. “Yet, we remain.”

Casa Frida, which works with LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers in Mexico City, in a Jan. 20 post to its X account said it will continue to work with the aforementioned groups with the support of local officials.

“We are preparing ourselves to continue working with love and solidarity in favor of LGBTIQ communities, migrants and displaced people,” said Casa Frida. “Our programs are reorganized and coordinated with local governments with pride, dignity and without fear or shame of who we are.”

Ante los esperados cambios políticos; Estamos preparándonos para seguir adelante trabajando con amor y solidaridad en favor de las comunidades y personas LGBTIQ migrantes y desplazadas. Nuestros programas se reorganizan y coordinan con gobiernos locales. Con orgullo, dignidad y…

— Refugio LGBTIQ 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇲🇽 (@CasaFridaLGBT) January 20, 2025