The USOPC move follows the NCAA’s recent decision to stop allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports

Carleen Johnson
The Center Square

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is changing its “athlete safety policy,” pledging to follow President Donald Trump’s executive order protecting “opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports.”

The new policy, announced on Monday, did not come with fanfare, but with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and a letter sent to national sport governing bodies.

Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order was issued in February.

“In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports,” the executive order states. “This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”

There are many states deemed to be out of compliance with Trump’s directive focusing on Title IX and the participation of transgender women in women’s sports. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding.

According to a July 15 post from Defending Education, a national organization that aims to combat the perceived politicization of education, states out of compliance and at risk of losing federal education dollars include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

The 27-page USOPC “Athlete Safety Policy” now includes a section 3.3 which doesn’t overtly mention transgender athletes, but does say, “The USOPC is committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport. The USOPC will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities, e.g., IOC, IPC, NGBs, to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201.”

Beth Parlato, senior legal advisor at the Independent Women’s Forum, did not see this coming.

“It did come as a surprise,” she said. “There was no notice; however, there was that mandate from the president’s executive order back in February, where he called them out specifically and other governing bodies to make their policies compliant with his executive order.”

Parlato applauded the policy change, telling The Center Square she and IWF members have been waiting and watching to see if USOPC would comply. 

“And then it just happened so quietly,” she said. “They just updated their policy on the website, just saying that they’re not going to allow men to compete. That’s their policy.”

She explained that USOPC is putting the onus on governing bodies of different sports organizations to follow its lead.

“So the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee [is] setting the policy, and now they’re asking everybody else, you know, each individual sport, which has their own governing body, their own federations [to comply],” Parlato said. “So, every individual sport has their own national governing body, so they are asking that all the various national governing bodies of all the different sports follow their lead.”

Parlato said details on how enforcement will work, or if there will be enforcement, are unclear.

“They basically just said that the various sports federations must change their policy,” she said. “As a lawyer, I’m just kind of figuring out why they would have done it that way.”

USOPC is a federally chartered organization, she noted, so there is congressional oversight.

“They are a private nonprofit entity, so they are basically a quasi-governmental entity, so they have to comply with federal law,” Parlato said. “So when President Trump’s executive order to keep men out of women’s sports was signed on February 6th, they had to comply with the EO.”

Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, issued a statement in response to the USOPC policy change. 

“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.

“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.”

The USOPC move follows the NCAA’s recent decision to stop allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports.

This report was first published by The Center Square.