On Feb. 5, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports. This is the fourth order Trump has signed directly targeting transgender people since assuming office Jan. 20.
The “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order aims to stop “men” from stealing victories from biological women, but all this order really does is continue to perpetuate transphobia.
In the 2024 Paris Olympics, Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif was the target of transphobia and harassment after being falsely labeled as transgender. Recently, Trump even referred to her as the “male boxer.” People began referring to Khelif as transgender after her 46-second win against boxer Angela Carini, which Carini said was due to the strength of Khelif’s severe punches. This led to a flood of hate messages to Khelif and even a report that she had levels of testosterone in her system that were somehow too high for cisgender women. However, this claim means nothing, as there is no “correct” amount of testosterone or estrogen for all people, cisgender and transgender alike. Due to these accusations, committees attempted to mark her ineligible and take her medal.
While Khelif has been successful in combating these efforts, the situation highlights the way many view transgender female athletes in sports: as some type of unbeatable force. But this is not true, and there are a plethora of examples of trans athletes losing to cisgender individuals.
I find this thought process odd because, when people debate trans athletes in sports, they always seem to target trans women and somehow ignore trans men. Even outside of sports, politicians are often seen attacking trans women and stopping them from doing simple things, such as using the women’s restroom. Most times, they ignore transgender men who live the same lifestyle as their female counterparts.
Transphobia within America seems to only be getting worse, and the Trump administration’s policies seek to increase discrimination against trans individuals and outright alienate them. We must combat this exclusion by protecting and uplifting all transgender athletes, who deserve recognition for their abilities without facing discrimination.
