Title IX and Women’s Sports Policy

The U.S. Department of Education is publicly marking just over a year of enforcing President Donald Trump’s 2025 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports' executive order, claiming progress in barring transgender women and girls (described by the agency as 'biological males') from competing in female sports categories. Under the administration’s pressure, the NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee have updated policies to restrict women’s competition to athletes assigned female at birth, and schools such as Harvard and Trinity University have revised or removed prior transgender inclusion policies. The department has also secured resolution agreements over alleged Title IX violations with the University of Pennsylvania and Wagner College tied to trans participation on women’s teams, while opening additional investigations into districts in Colorado, New York, California and the University of Nevada, Reno. At the same time, the Justice Department is suing state agencies in Maine and California for allowing transgender athletes in girls’ high school sports, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon has threatened San Jose State University with loss of federal funds and a DOJ referral if it does not address alleged Title IX violations this month. The campaign underscores how the administration is using federal civil-rights enforcement and funding leverage to reshape national policy on transgender participation in women’s sports, even as opponents argue the effort itself violates Title IX and equal-protection principles.