President Donald Trump signed an executive order to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports on Wednesday, Feb. 5, which happened to coincide with National Girls and Women in Sports Day.
The order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” claims to “protect opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports.” In response, The National Collegiate Athletic Association amended its policies to restrict women’s sports to people assigned female at birth.
The ban, presented under the guise of protecting female athletes, diverts attention from the most alarming issue in women’s sports: the disproportionate amount of violence and sexual assault that female athletes endure.
Transgender athletes make up 0.0000188% of the 530,000 athletes currently competing in college sports, according to NCAA President Charlie Baker. That’s less than 10 out of more than half a million athletes.
The exclusion of transgender women from sports also sets a dangerous precedent for broader gender-based discrimination. It reinforces the narrative that policing women’s bodies is acceptable under the pretense of fairness.
According to a handbook published by UN Women, 21% of female athletes experienced sexual abuse in a sport,almost double the rate of male athletes. This data reveals a systemic problem that has profound implications for the safety and well-being of women and girls in sports.
High-profile sexual abuse scandals, like that of former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar and multiple instances in FIFA women’s soccer, brought light to the severity and widespread nature of sexual abuse and harassment, but were quickly forgotten.
Nassar served as an athletic trainer and doctor for Team USA and Michigan State University’s women’s gymnastics teams. He began sexually abusing his athletes as early as 1994 and was accused of abusing an MSU student in 1998, but he was not formally prosecuted for more than two decades. He pled guilty to 10 counts of sexual assault in 2017 and was sentenced to 60 years in prison for child pornography charges with an additional 40 to 175 years for his sexual assault charges.
Sexual abuse transcends across sports in both the collegiate and professional level.
In 2022, an independent investigation of the U.S. Soccer Federation was conducted concerning allegations of abusive behavior and sexual misconduct in professional women’s soccer. The investigation found that the “abuse in the [National Women’s Soccer League] was systemic,” and that “teams, the League and the Federation failed to adequately address reports and evidence of [sexual] misconduct.” Abusive coaches were also able to move from team to team in the league.
In 2023, Spain’s former football chief, Luis Rubiales, forcibly kissed one of his players, Jenni Hermoso, on the lips following Spain’s win in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. In an ongoing battle, Hermoso is still seeking justice for her assault. Rubiales was banned from all football-related activities for a mere three years, which is not enough to prevent him from abusing another athlete.
Fifteen members of the women’s football team had previously contacted the Spanish Football Federation, declaring themselves unavailable for selection for the national team due to concerns about the national team’s head coach, Jorge Vilda. The women said their mental and personal well-being were affected by situations that they requested be remedied.
These incidents highlight a pattern where individuals in positions of power exploit their roles while the large institutions behind them prioritize their reputations over their athletes’ welfare. These are the bigger issues that keep women from competing safely in sports, not transgender athletes.
The issue doesn’t end with female athletes. Female coaches, reporters, referees and fans face violence at a higher rate, according to the UN Women handbook.
If policymakers, including Trump, were genuinely concerned about keeping women safe, they would work to introduce legislation to help prosecute abusers and assaulters, encourage victims to come forward and believe girls when they speak out about their abuse.
The bigger crisis facing women’s sports is not the minuscule number of transgender athletes, but the failure to protect female athletes from abuse and harassment. What we need is to hold these teams and coaches accountable and ensure they address issues openly rather than sweeping them under the rug so that the public knows where the actual concerns in women’s sports lies. Until these issues are addressed, claims of protecting women in sports remain shallow and politically motivated distractions.