Opinion
Trump’s latest Olympic edict effectively closes US border to transgender athletes
Darren Kane
Sports ColumnistLast week, Donald Trump signed into law an executive order, titled Establishing the White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Its purpose is stated as enabling America’s federal government to lead a unified effort to ensure maximum safety, secure borders and world-class transportation for the millions of visitors who will descend on the US for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Section 3(d) confers legal authority on the taskforce to “… assist in the planning and implementation of visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials and media personnel”. So far, nothing nakedly objectionable.
But it was what Trump said during the press conference conducted following his scribbling ceremony that reeked of the dystopian and represents cause for alarm. First, and in response to direct questioning, Trump refused to extinguish the idea of criminally prosecuting transgender athletes who participate in women’s sports. Let that sink in.
Second, Trump alluded to a “… very, very strong form of [sex] testing …” that (presumably) all athletes must pass in order to compete in women’s competition at the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Trump doubled down “… if the test doesn’t come out appropriately, they won’t be in the Olympics …”
Let that resonate. Over 7000 female Olympic and Paralympic athletes will enter the competitions for LA 2028. Taken at his word – and maybe that isn’t prudent – the US president is alluding to some type of all-encompassing “sex testing” of those athletes as a hurdle to entry. That idea is off-the-Richter-scale bonkers.
Credit: Simon Letch
That the government of a nation hosting an Olympic Games would suggest that it’s within the jurisdiction of that country to “sex-test” athletes is medieval in sophistication.
But in another sense, none of it should be news. Trump campaigned for the 2024 presidential election on the mantra of outlawing transgender athletes participating in women’s sporting competition in the United States. Six months ago, he signed a different executive order titled KEEPING MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS. Which pretty much does what it says on the tin.
That order, made in February 2025, is prefaced by saying that “In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports. This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports”.
The effects have been swift and stark. Almost immediately afterwards, the US’s National Collegiate Athletic Association amended its policies to limit competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth only. Last month, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee amended its policies to ensure consistency with that February 2025 order.
Donald Trump has made his intentions clear.Credit: AP
What was missed back in February was the order’s intent to prevent from entering the United States any person whose intended entry enlivens section 212(a)(6)(C)(i) of the United States’ Immigration and Nationality Act.
That provision says, “Any alien who, by fraud or wilfully misrepresenting a material fact, seeks to procure (or has sought to procure or has procured) a visa, other documentation, or admission into the United States or other benefit provided under this Act is inadmissible.”
In context, what Trump’s order is directed at is preventing entry to the United States by any person who asserts that they are anything other than the gender they were assigned at birth.
Given the legal position in the United States is that “… It is the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality …” a transgender woman applying for a US visa would be committing a fraud if using a passport denoting their selected gender as opposed to birth gender.
Trump has already declared Department of Homeland Security officers will forbid entry to any transgender athletes attempting to pass through LAX to compete at the 2028 Games. Because the Trump Administration won’t countenance “men” beating female athletes.
There’s no precedent I can conjure here. Even the Third Reich didn’t impose a blanket ban on black or Jewish athletes competing at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
The question as to the participation of transgender athletes in Olympic and international-level elite athletic competition is increasingly answered by the exclusion of such athletes.
Major international federations such as World Aquatics have adopted policies deeming transgender women ineligible in female competition. The exception is where they never experienced male puberty, or unless they had their male puberty pharmacologically stopped before their 12th birthday. World Athletics has recently enshrined in its rules a one-off gender test, which must be passed for an athlete to compete in female competition.
The International Olympic Committee itself must set clear and unequivocal policy to protect the integrity of female athletic competition. But while it’s the responsibility of the IOC and the international federations to traverse this minefield, it’s wicked that the US president considers it within his domain to dictate who can and can’t compete at the Olympics.
Unless the US Congress can override Trump’s orders – or unless the Supreme Court rules them unlawful – the grim future for US transgender athletes and indeed any transgender person seeking entry to compete in sporting competition in the United States is plain.
But what is truly frightening is the prospect Homeland Security might round up international transgender athletes coming into America; asserting criminality.
When the 2028 Games to were awarded to Los Angeles in 2017, the US Olympic Committee noted that the IOC had relied on the US Government to respect the Olympic Charter. Trump was US President in 2017. The provisions of the Charter are entirely inconsistent with the bold concept of arresting any athlete for attempting to enter the host nation to compete.
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