Team USA Olympics Trans Ban May Violate Federal Law

“It gives Donald Trump the ability to rewrite USOPC's rules for them.”

Photo by Nathanaël Desmeules on Unsplash

Transgender women and girls have been barred from Team USA following a sweeping ban issued by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

In a statement shared with Erin in the Morning, the Committee cited President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14201, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” The USOPC echoed troubling and pseudoscientific talking points, justifying the anti-trans capitulation as a move to secure “fair and safe competition environments for women.” But we know from experience this concern isn’t really about keeping any women “safe”; it's about whipping up an anti-trans maelstrom, and people of all gender minorities will feel the backlash.

The USOPC claims that “as a federally chartered organization, [they] have an obligation to comply with federal expectations.”

“Accordingly, we have updated our athlete safety policy to reflect this federal guidance,” their statement reads. However, experts told Erin in the Morning that it’s not so clean-cut.

“I think one of the key challenges with what the USOPC has put out is the incredible vagueness,” said Brian Dittmeier, the National Women’s Law Center director of LGBTQI+ equality. “The policy change that was enacted simply said that they will comply with both the transphobic executive order and other authorities, including the Ted Stevens Act, and where there are tensions between the two, USOPC did not provide any clarity or direction. That's incredibly concerning, because to an extent, it gives Donald Trump the ability to rewrite USOPC's rules for them.”

The Ted Stevens Act was passed in 1978 to prevent national governing sports bodies from enacting eligibility criteria “that are more restrictive than those of the appropriate international sports federation.” In the case of USA Fencing, for example, the congressional DOGE committee spent countless hours and taxpayer dollars grilling a sports official from USAF over his support of trans inclusion—a policy in line with the eligibility criteria of the International Fencing Foundation. In other words, USAF appeared to be following the law. Although President Trump issued an anti-trans screed in the form of an executive order, it remains true that federal law supersedes the authority of an EO. (What fencing had to do with government oversight under DOGE remains unclear, as USAF does not rely on federal funds.)

Nonetheless, USAF, too, capitulated after political pressure from the right.

Fatima Goss Graves, the NWLC CEO, was the expert witness at the hearing, who spoke alongside the USAF official about the harms and pseudoscience of trans-exclusionary policies.

Now, Graves has condemned the discriminatory frameworks adopted by Team USA. “The world is watching with alarm at the loss of freedom and opportunity in our country, especially as the United States is expected to host future Olympic events,” she said in a statement shared with Erin in the Morning. “The Committee will learn—as so many other institutions have—that there is no benefit in appeasing the endless, shifting, and petulant demands coming out of the White House.”

Earlier this week, Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas also launched a lawsuit against US Masters Swimmers, an adult-only recreational league, based on assertions that trans women may have swam in the women’s categories.

“It is deeply disappointing to see our organization and individual members publicly targeted in a lawsuit that appears to be more about generating headlines than seeking justice,” a July 18 statement from USMS reads. But they too backed down and banned trans women from ranking in women’s competition. Participants whose genders are contested may be required to produce their birth certificate, government ID, or medical records, or undergo further medical examinations in order to be fully included.

The Olympic ban is slated to play out similarly. “By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes,” Graves said. “The USOPC should devote its energy to the real and serious disparities harming women athletes: fewer chances to participate across all sports compared to boys and men; worse facilities, coaching, and equipment placing girls and women at greater risk of injury; and endemic sex harassment and assault perpetrated against women athletes."

Indeed, Trump’s executive order will not only impact trans women; it can be weaponized against anyone whose womanhood is deemed inconvenient at any given time.

“Any athletics body that attempts to follow Trump’s executive order targeting intersex and transgender women will subject all women to discrimination, harassment, and the severe privacy violations that result from ‘sex testing,’” said Erika Lorshbough, Executive Director of InterACT, an intersex advocacy group.

“Suspicion of a cisgender woman due to her appearance and competence at her sport can expose women to global harassment, such as boxer Imane Khelif in the 2024 Summer Olympics. Many women do not even know they are intersex until they undergo genetic testing, and if enforced by the Olympics, might be subjected to a public and invasive ‘outing,’” they told Erin in the Morning. “All athletes, intersex and transgender women included, deserve the freedom to compete without discriminatory barriers.”