Pushing transgender women out of sports ‘protects’ no one.

In fact, it hurts everyone. It opens up the window for women and girls to have their appearances scrutinized, putting them into a box of what being female should look like. It spreads the idea that women are weak and in desperate need of protection, which is untrue. It aims to remove a problem that is essentially nonexistent and serves as a distraction from the incompetence of our current administration.

On Feb. 5 President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” Its goal, according to whitehouse.gov, is to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

Essentially, the order intends to punish schools that allow transgender women to compete in sports under the guide of protecting and keeping the competition fair. ​​However, the executive order has reached far beyond the scope of athletes in schools that receive funding.

In response to the order, the NCAA issued a new policy limiting competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only, according to ESPN. On Feb. 25, the State Department announced a ban on transgender athletes from entering the U.S. if they attempt to compete in women’s sports. The order should not apply to athletes in programs that do not receive federal funding, but the general transphobia it promotes will affect athletes everywhere.

Among Republicans, opposing transgender athletes in women’s sports is a cultural issue that unifies all wings of the party. The fight is not restricted to one party though, and many Democrats, like Congressman Tom Suozzi, have spoken out in support of keeping “biological males” out of women’s sports.

A New York Times/Ipsos poll conducted in early January found broad opposition to transgender female athletes among the public as well. In asking respondents whether transgender female athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, 79% of American adults said they “should not” be allowed to compete.

So why do so many people oppose transgender women in sports, and why now? They’ve been competing for years without much speculation, so what changed? Well, current media has convinced many people that transgender female athletes are a pressing issue and a danger to other women. This just isn’t true, and by believing hateful propaganda, Americans are failing the LGBTQ+ community and helping to reinforce sexist stereotypes.

The current debate over trans inclusion in sports is rooted in misinformation, not genuine concern for safety or fairness. For starters, the number of trans female athletes is quite small. NCAA President Charlie Baker said in December that fewer than 10 out of 530,000 NCAA athletes used the association’s transgender athlete eligibility policy. Researcher and medical physicist Joanna Harper estimates that the number of transgender athletes competing in public school sports can’t exceed 100 nationwide.

On top of this, research shows that trans athletes perform at the same level as their cisgender counterparts. To put it simply, the traditional understanding of gender and athletic ability is evolving, and there is significant variability among all athletes already. Being trans isn’t some great advantage that guarantees victory.

Trans women also aren’t a danger to other women. There are no studies to show that violent crime rates against cisgender women and girls decrease when trans women are forced to use spaces that align with the sex assigned to them at birth. Cisgender women aren’t in any more danger than they always have been.

Our government does not honestly care about addressing the actual inequities that female athletes face. This executive order is a gateway into policing how women look and act. Enforcement of proposed restrictions threatens to sweep up any girl or woman athlete who is perceived as “too masculine” or “too good” at their sport to be a “real” woman or girl. By allowing trans women to be removed from women’s sports, all women open their bodies up to judgment and invasive questioning.

Ilona Maher, an Olympic bronze medalist in rugby and Quinnipiac alumna, has endured countless allegations that she’s a man. Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer, was continuously called a man during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Caster Semenya, a South African middle-distance runner, had her sex questioned after winning the gold medal for the women’s 800-meter race at the world championships in 2009.

All of these women are cisgender females, but that didn’t stop the public from scrutinizing their bodies or diminishing their accomplishments. Once you start attacking trans athletes, you attack all cis women in sports as well.

Transphobia hurts everyone, whether we realize it or not.