Washington – President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” on Feb. 5.
Local athlete Payton McNabb of Hiwassee Dam, as well as other female activists, joined Trump on stage in the East Room of the White House while he talked about the executive order.
The executive order effectively bans transgender identifying women from participating in female sports. The order also says the federal government will remove funding to programs that allow transgender women to participate in female sports.
On Thursday – one day after the order was signed – the NCAA announced that they will no longer allow transgender identifying women to participate in sanctioned athletics. The group’s policy prior to Trump’s executive order was that the sanctioning body of the sport was to make the decision on the participation of transgender women in female sports.
The order mentions in its fourth section that state attorneys general are to discuss the best way to enforce “equal opportunities for women in sports, and to educate them about stories of women and girls who have been harmed by male participation in women’s sports.”
‘Rock star athlete’
McNabb was injured when an allegedly transgender girl spiked a volleyball during a game and hit her in the face. She said she sustained partial paralysis and a traumatic brain injury after being hit with such force.
She was at the White House on Feb. 5, when Trump signed the executive order. McNabb was mentioned by Trump when he was talking about the executive order he was signing. He called her a “rock star athlete” when talking to her on stage.
Describing how it felt when he signed the order, McNabb said, “It was such a surreal moment, and I was very, very thankful to be there and have the opportunity to witness history being made. I’m very thankful that we finally a president and administration that is willing to take this issue as serious as it is and are willing to stand up for women.”
McNabb said she was not expecting the president to mention her at the executive order signing. Her message to female athletes is to, “Keep playing, keep fighting for what’s right, and that they deserve these basic rights and opportunities that the women before us have fought so hard to even get.”
The executive order
Trump’s executive order is broken up into five sections. The first section describes the policy and purpose, with the first mention of Title IX.
“Under Title IX of the Education Amendment Act of 1972, educational institutions receiving Federal funds cannot deny women an equal opportunity to participate in sports … ‘ignoring fundamental biological truths between the two sexes deprives women and girls of meaning access of educational facilities,’ ” some of the first section reads.
The first section continues by reading that the U.S. government will remove funding from educational programs that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which result in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls, and deprives them of privacy.”
It also says the United States will oppose those born male from participating in women’s sports “as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity and truth.”
Section two of the order says the definitions in the Jan. 20 executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” will apply to this order.
Section three, titled “Preserving Women’s Sports in Education, talks about protecting all-female athletic opportunities and all-female locker rooms, prioritizing Title IX enforcement action against educational institutions, instructing all executive departments to review grants to educational programs and possibly rescind funds to programs that fail to comply with this order. The U.S. Department of Justice will provide necessary resources to enforce the order.
In the fourth section, the order says different governing bodies have unfair policies toward female athletes in relation to transgender women playing sports. The order says they will address the concerns by having the assistant to the president for domestic policy complete various tasks to ensure the governing bodies create fairness in accordance with the order.
The order concludes with a fifth section of general provisions, which is common among presidential executive orders. To read the entirety of the executive order, visit whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/keeping-men-out-of-womens-sports.