President Donald Trump said he would make moves to ensure that no transgender athletes participated in women’s sports at the 2028 summer Olympics, being held in Los Angeles.
Trump surrounded himself with female athletes and activists for an executive order signing in the East Room Wednesday, barring trans participation in women’s sports.
The order uses Title IX, a law against sex discrimination in taxpayer-funded education programs, to ban transgender girls and women from participating in female school sports.
Trump said his new Secretary of State Marco Rubio ‘is going to make clear to the International Olympic Committee’ that ‘America categorically rejects transgender lunacy.’
‘We want them to change everything having to do with the Olympics and having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject,’ Trump went on.
Historically transgender athletes have participated in the Olympic Games and the IOC has released guidelines for their inclusion.
Trump also said that the Department of Homeland Security, under Secretary Kristi Noem, would go after ‘men attempting to fraudulently enter the United States while identifying themselves as women athletes.’
Transgender rights has become a potent political issue for Republicans, with Trump heralding it as an election winner.
President Donald Trump said he would make moves to ensure that no transgender athletes participated in women’s sports at the 2028 summer Olympics, being held in Los Angeles
‘There are people out there, Democrats, that are still totally in favor. They can’t win the argument. They can’t win the debate,’ Trump said.
‘But it’s OK, as long as they do this and open borders and all the other things they talk about – transgender everything – all they want to do is transgender – and men playing in women’s sports and all of these crazy things.’
Trump said the Republicans would never go along with it.
‘We’re just going to keep winning elections,’ the president said.
Trump kicked off his Wednesday event in the East Room by saying it ‘doesn’t have to be long’ but then holding court for more than 30 minutes.
He name-dropped every politician in the room.
One notable attendee was Rep. Nancy Mace, who led the charge to keep the first transgender member of Congress, Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, from being able to use the women’s bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol.
‘You are absolutely doing the right thing,’ Mace shouted up to Trump.
Trump surrounded himself with female athletes and activists for an executive order signing in the East Room Wednesday, barring trans participation in women’s sports
Mace, a South Carolina Republican, was critical after the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack – and so Trump had her primaried the following year.
But she’s since become a vocal Trump defender.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was also in the audience.
Trump joked about how she had a reputation for being ‘shy.’
‘She’s trying to break out of it,’ Trump said to laughs.
In 2021, Greene hung an anti-trans sign outside her office, knowing her Congressional neighbor across the hall had a trans child.
The star of the show, however, was Riley Gaines, a college swimmer who competed against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and made a name for herself by advocating against the inclusion of trans people in athletics.
