Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” This put the schools that receive federal funding on notice against allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s categories. Or they would end up risking their financial support. But now, with a fresh update, that initial directive targeting has evolved into a much broader confrontation on the world stage.

As reported by NewsX Live, POTUS recently escalated his stance dramatically, signing a new executive order that sets the policy in place ahead of the 2028 LA Games. Trump stated that,

“I’m also keeping the men out of the women’s sports. And I signed an executive order declaring that there are only two genders, male and female. Complicated, isn’t it? Male and female.”

He added, “We’ll be okay. And we have put the world on notice that America will not allow men to compete against women in the 2028 Olympics.”

This comes months after the news that broke out in November 2025 that the IOC is edging closer towards a blanket ban on transgender women competing in the female category at the LA Olympics Games. Sources back then expected this ban to be implemented within 6 to 12 months. However, there’s no confirmation of such a ban yet.

And now Donald Trump’s stance has placed the IOC in a delicate diplomatic position. Kirsty Coventry, the IOC President who made history as the first woman and first African to lead the committee, addressed it last month that the IOC hasn’t spoken to President Trump about the LA 2028 Olympics entirely.

“As it pertains to the USA, we have not had formal communication just yet with the White House. We have seen the formal announcement of President Trump’s team. We look forward to meeting the vice-president.”

But there are some who have supported President Trump’s call.

The fight over trans inclusion in US sport took a new turn last year, when the NCAA decided that only women assigned female at birth can compete in college women’s events, right as Donald Trump signed an executive order pushing trans athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports nationwide.

Taylor Rey Narvasa knows exactly what that feels like. The former NCAA volleyball player at the University of Washington, now playing in the North American Gay Volleyball Association, watched the decision land after months of anxiety. She had seen the storm clouds gathering, but still felt the hit when it finally arrived.

“I was devastated. We all knew it was coming – it wasn’t necessarily a surprise – but there’s a difference between anticipatory grief and present grief. It made me feel awful, knowing my identity and existence are being debated every single day, with the rhetoric only intensifying,” she told The Guardian in February 2025.

For transgender athletes chasing a pro contract or dreaming of the Olympics, that mix of Trump’s executive order and the NCAA’s ruling is not just background noise. It is a concrete barrier that can freeze careers in place, block qualification pathways, and cut them off from the competition they have been building toward for years.

As she added, “People dismiss it by saying, ‘It’s just sports.’ But for so many, it’s their livelihood, their escape, their mental health. Being on a court with teammates who affirm you is life-saving for some.”

With the 2028 Olympics on the horizon, the new IOC president must navigate a host nation whose leader has explicitly made it clear about transgender athletes. Meanwhile, this debate has been going on since the POTUS mentioned it last year, and there are some who have supported it.

World Athletics President on Donald Trump’s announcement

World Athletics has strongly aligned itself with the ideals underpinning Donald Trump’s executive order.

President Sebastian Coe expressed his support on social media, saying, “Preserving the integrity of competition in the Female Category is a fundamental principle of the sport of Athletics, and we look forward to this collaborative consultation process with our key stakeholders in this area.”

Since then, World Athletics has mandated that all female competitors participating in international competitions undergo a single DNA test. This judgment, however, has enormous implications for the LA Olympics.

Transgender athletes, such as French-Senegalese sprinter Halba Diouf, who recorded a 200-meter time of 22.61 seconds, barely four hundredths of a second short of Olympic qualifying, are already forbidden from participating under World Athletics standards that exclude athletes who have undergone male puberty.

There’s still time for the LA Olympics, but with President Donald Trump’s executive order, the future is bleak for transgender competitors in all sports.