Among the numerous executive orders that Donald Trump has pledged to sign on his first day of his second term in the White House, which will be formalized in the early hours of Thursday morning when he is inaugurated at the Capitol, is one related to the prohibition of transgender athletes competing in women’s events.
During a rally he held in Washington a day before the inauguration, Trump said that “you have to keep men out of women’s sports”. Already on the campaign trail, before the November election, the Republican president insisted that “banning transgender girls from participating in women’s sports would be a first-day priority”.
Men must be kept out of women’s sports
Donald Trump, presidente electo de Estados Unidos
Although according to Gallup, an American analytics and advisory company, only 1% of Americans identify as transgender – and only a tiny fraction of them would aspire to compete at the elite level – Trump made banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s events one of his campaign slogans.
It should be remembered that since the International Olympic Committee left it up to the federations to establish the legal framework that should regulate the participation of transgender athletes in the different competitions, many bodies, such as World Athletics, UCI, World Rugby or World Aquatics, have decided to prohibit their presence at elite level. Others have also regulated the lower categories, in which they are also ruled out from competing if they have not made the transition before puberty. One such example is the LGPA.