RUTHFULLY YOURS

As long as we’ve had organized sports, no one thought it would be a good idea for men to compete against women, until the last several years. As part of the trans craze, male athletes infiltrated women’s competitions, teams, and locker rooms. The consequences were woeful, and sometimes, men claimed a spot on each rank of the podium in women’s divisions. Now, President Trump has intervened with his aptly named executive order, “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports.”

Trump has already been fighting the pervasive gender ideology through his executive actions. On Inauguration Day, he signed an order on “gender ideology extremism” that directed all federal agencies and employees to operate on sex-based definitions of words like “male,” “female,” “men,” “women,” “boys,” and “girls.” On January 28, Trump signed the order on “chemical and surgical mutilation” that protects children from the medical abuse that is often wrongly branded as “gender-affirming care.” The recent executive order, announced on Wednesday, takes drastic action to ensure that Title IX promotes equal opportunity and equal protection in sports on the basis of sex rather than gender — and universities or athletic associations that don’t comply will likely suffer a painful punishment.

In his order, Trump directed the secretary of education to pursue action against educational institutions or sports associations that either require women to compete against males or undress in their presence. Moreover, all executive departments and agencies are empowered to rescind funding to programs that similarly violate these sex-based protections. The Department of Justice is instructed to coordinate and provide the necessary resources to enforce these policies. But perhaps only minimal enforcement efforts will be needed, since it seems that even the most high-profile organizations have already proposed plans to make changes. For example, the NCAA announced that women’s competitions would be limited to athletes who were born female.

Not every athletic association or competition circuit that permits athletes to compete in divisions with respect to preferred “gender identity” has the same policies. Some guidelines require nothing more than an explicit statement of an athlete’s “gender identity,” whereas others require males to receive hormonal treatment for a minimum time period and reduce testosterone levels below a certain level. As we’ve previously noted, in many instances, the maximum testosterone thresholds for males to compete in women’s divisions are often well above the average levels for females. Hopefully, the new executive order will resolve these policy disparities: Within 60 days, the assistant to the president for domestic policy will convene female athletes, representatives of sports-governing bodies, and state attorneys general to identify and promote the best practices for ensuring equal opportunity in sports.

Progressives aren’t going to give up on this issue, although polling shows that a supermajority of Americans want women’s athletics to be women-only. Organizing sports by sex — rather than the nebulous concept of “gender” — is only common sense, and the executive order is a big step toward finally restoring it across the land.