President Donald Trump’s whirlwind first few weeks have included a series of orders targeting transgender people, which the administration alleges are designed to protect women and girls. On Feb. 5, Trump signed an executive order banning trans women and girls from competing in female sports. The NCAA quickly moved to change its policy in compliance, instituting a new rule affirming the executive order.
Then on Wednesday, a new mandate came down from Trump’s Education Department. This one says that Title IX will not apply to name, image and likeness deals. The directive winds back guidance from then-President Joe Biden’s administration, which stated that schools must equitably distribute image and likeness (NIL) payments between male and female athletes.
The measure, called the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order,” was couched in language about “protecting” athletic opportunities for women and girls.
Under the guise of a word salad that included phrases such as “financial aid” and “gender equity,” Craig Trainor, Trump’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, argued that the Biden White House had no authority to force schools to split NIL funds this way.
There are words, and then there are actions. The executive order banning trans women was expected, given how conservatives focused on the issue during the 2024 election. But the measure, called the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order,” was couched in language about “protecting” athletic opportunities for women and girls.
And yet, with its new NIL guidance, the Trump White House is sending the opposite message.
While the decision from the Education Department has no teeth, the symbolism is hard to miss. The guidance states that women’s sports are important — but not important enough that they deserve equal funding. Women’s athletic opportunities are important, the administration claims — but not necessarily as important as the opportunities afforded to men.
If men’s sports drive more dollars via TV rights and fans in the stands, that’s where the lion’s share of the NIL money should go. This is the same attitude that drove business decisions — and funding decisions — 10 to 20 years ago, before the rise of successful professional women’s leagues such as the WNBA, NSWL and PWHL. And well before women became a massive draw in college athletics. The Trump administration may prefer that era, but women certainly won’t.
While women’s hoops coaches such as UConn’s Geno Auriemma and UCLA’s Cori Close have spoken out regarding the recent orders from the Trump administration, it is a bit perplexing to have heard nothing thus far from some of the collegiate stars and up-and-coming pros who relied so heavily on their success in women’s college athletics.
But of course, this move sends an even more unsettling message to the transgender community in America. The efforts to erase and remove trans women from women’s athletics feel less like protecting women and more like villainizing an already marginalized community for political gain. The Education Department has also asked the NCAA to reverse transgender athletes’ records; yet another measure of invalidating the trans community.
Crafting policies for trans athletes is complicated and everyone agrees that safety and fairness must be prioritized. But conservatives don’t appear very interested in the complexities of this topic. Keep in mind that out of the almost 500,000 student-athletes who make up the NCAA, a minuscule fraction are transgender. Depending on your source, anywhere from roughly 10 to 40 athletes identify as transgender.
I’m currently friends with a trans athlete who has competed at the highest levels of professional bowling. The United States Bowling Congress has a very rigorous set of rules and guidelines trans athletes must follow if they want to compete. It isn’t easy. But not every sport is the same. And that is exactly why this topic requires nuance.
The Trump administration’s messaging, on the other hand, is not nuanced. And neither is it about protecting opportunities for women.
