His inauguration was less than three weeks ago and Donald Trump is already implementing one of his main election promises: The new US president signs a decree with the title: “Keep men from women’s sports.”
Behind it is a direct attack on athletes who either have carried out a gender conversion from man to wife or in which both male and female gender features are available.
Trump wants to end the war against women’s sports
Discussions have been dealing with the dealings with these athletes in world sports and science for years. It’s about hormone levels. But also about the most intimate, personal questions of identity. Donald Trump makes a war against women’s sports – which he now declares to be ended.
Majority of the Americans support Trump’s course
Dozens of athletes applaud and cheer when Trump announces the decree. They see themselves as rescuers in women’s sports and have repeatedly demanded the exclusion of transcerners in recent years. According to a survey by the Gallup opinion research institute, this supports more than two thirds of the US population from 2023.
Transporters would have unfair advantages, even if they artificially lower their testosterone values. In combat and contact sports, the more massive and more powerful bodies are even hazardous to health. The study situation on these questions is not clear – but there is no space for nuances at Trump.
Trump announces: Schools and universities who continue to participate in sports activities for girls and women should no longer receive any money from the Ministry of Education.
Transsexual triathlete Mosier: “The decree is illegal!”
Organizations and activists who work for transit rights indicate that the decree is not a law – and sometimes even violated existing laws in individual states.
The decree is illegal and it will be challenged in court, says Chris Mosier, for example. The triathlete was the first athlete to become a man part of a US national team after gender conversion. The legal uncertainty is part of Trump’s strategy, he explains in an Instagram video.
“Trump relies on confusion, disinformation and fear to attack trans people and thus implement people in the preceding obedience,” said Mosier.
Trump has sparked a cultural struggle from individual cases
The NCAA, the umbrella organization for college sports, has already done this: In a statement, the association announced that only players who were born as a woman were allowed to take part in women’s competitions.
The NCAA also shows the mismatch between the debate and the actual extent of the supposed problem. Because of the more than 500,000 college athletes are fewer than ten transorters.
Sport as a test area for trans -hostile messages
Trump and his allies have created a cultural struggle from these individual cases. Sport was the test area for trans-hostile messages, says US politician Jules Boykoff.
“Donald Trump has been used as a club against people for a long time, and now it is clear that this constant stream of trans -enemy bigotry was the gateway to demonize trans people, which we experience today under Trump.”
Now Trump is trying to enforce his gender ideology outside the United States.
Trump threatens to not give transathletes visas for the Olympics
The International Olympic Committee is currently leaving it to international associations, as is dealt with with transorters. The IOC has only set up guidelines: The associations should enable the most open, but also fair competition as possible and make their decision -based decision -based.
In the decree, which he signed on Wednesday, Trump ordered his Foreign Ministry to put pressure on the international Olympic Committee so that the IOC adjusts its regulations. He even threatens not to give transathletes a entry permit for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
The IOC remains silent on request
The fact that all participating athletes receive visas is one of the guarantees that Olympic hosts have to hand over to the IOC. It is a basic principle of the Olympic movement that Trump questions. The IOC remains silent.
On Deutschlandfunk questions as to whether Trump’s statement is an interference with the autonomy of sport and what measures the IOC takes to ensure the entry of all athletes does not answer.
A lot of things will depend on the new IOC president who will be elected in March, says political scientist Jules Boykoff. However, he does not believe that the IOC will oppose Trump.
“As far as the IOC is concerned, I have little hope. If you really took responsibility, you would stand up and say: We have to wait for scientific evidence that show that there is a kind of general advantage. But you have not enough. Instead, they took the easier way, namely cowardice in the face of power, ”said Boykoff.