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Fox Sports
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox Sports
Trump gave the USOPC cover on its transgender athlete policy change. It could end up in court anyway
Associated Press In its push to remove transgender athletes from Olympic sports, the Trump administration provided the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee a detailed legal brief on how such a move would not conflict with the Ted Stevens Act, the landmark 1978 federal statute governing the Olympic movement. That gave the USOPC the cover it needed to quietly change its policy, though the protection offers no guarantee the new policy won't be challenged in court. Olympic legal expert Jill Pilgrim called the Trump guidance 'a well thought-out, well-reasoned set of arguments for people who want to look at it from that perspective.' 'But I'd be pretty shocked if this doesn't get challenged if there is, somewhere along the line, a trans athlete who's in contention for an Olympic team or world championship and gets excluded,' said Pilgrim, who has experience litigating eligibility rules for the Olympics and is a former general counsel for USA Track and Field. The USOPC's update of its athlete safety policy orders its 54 national governing bodies to rewrite their participation rules to ensure they are in sync with the executive order Trump signed in February called 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports." When the USOPC released the guidance, fewer than five had rules that would adhere to the new policy. Among the first adopters was USA Fencing, which was pulled into a congressional hearing earlier this year about transgender women in sports when a woman refused to compete against a transgender opponent at a meet in Maryland. One of the main concerns over the USOPC's change is that rewriting the rules could conflict with a clause in the Ted Stevens Act stating that an NGB cannot have eligibility criteria 'that are more restrictive than those of the appropriate international sports federation' that oversees its sport. While some American federations such as USATF and USA Swimming follow rules set by their international counterparts, many others don't. International federations have wrestled with eligibility criteria surrounding transgender sports, and not all have guidelines as strict as what Trump's order calls for. World Rowing, for example, has guidelines that call for specific medical conditions to be met for transgender athletes competing in the female category. Other federations, such as the one for skiing, are more vague. White House lawyers provided the USOPC a seven-paragraph analysis that concluded that requiring 'men's participation in women's sports cannot be squared with the rest of the" Ted Stevens Act. 'And in any event, permitting male athletes to compete against only other fellow males is not a 'restriction' on participation or eligibility, it is instead, a neutral channeling rule," according to the analysis, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. Once the sports federations come into compliance, the question then becomes whether the new policy will be challenged, either by individual athletes or by states whose laws don't conform with what the NGBs adopt. The guidance impacts everyone from Olympic-level athletes to grassroots players whose clubs are affiliated with the NGBs. Shannon Minter, the legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said it will not be hard to find a transgender athlete who is being harmed by the USOPC change, and that the White House guidance 'will be challenged and is highly unlikely to succeed.' 'There are transgender women. There are some international sporting organizations that have policies that permit transgender women to compete if they meet certain medical conditions,' Minter said. 'Under the Ted Stevens Act, they can't override that. So, their response is just to, by brute force, pretend there's no such thing as a transgender woman. They can't just dictate that by sheer force of will.' Traditionally, athletes on the Olympic pathway who have issues with eligibility rules must first try to resolve those through what's called a Section IX arbitration case before heading to the U.S. court system. Pilgrim spelled out one scenario in which an athlete wins an arbitration 'and then the USOPC has a problem.' 'Then, it's in the USOPC's court to deny that person the opportunity to compete, and then they'll be in court, no doubt about that,' she said. All this comes against the backdrop of a 2020 law that passed that, in the wake of sex scandals in Olympic sports, gave Congress the power to dissolve the USOPC board. That, combined with the upcoming Summer Games in Los Angeles and the president's consistent effort to place his stamp on issues surrounding sports, is widely viewed as driving the USOPC's traditionally cautious board toward making a decision that was being roundly criticized in some circles. The committee's new policy replaces one that called for reliance on 'real data and science-based evidence rather than ideology" to make decisions about transgender athletes in sports. 'As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,' CEO Sarah Hirshland and board chair Gene Sykes wrote to Olympic stakeholders last week. 'The guidance we've received aligns with the Ted Stevens Act, reinforcing our mandated responsibility to promote athlete safety and competitive fairness.' The USOPC didn't set a timeline on NGBs coming into compliance, though it's believed most will get there by the end of the year. ___ AP sports: in this topic
USA Today
22-07-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee ban transgender women athletes, per Trump's order
Bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee quietly changed its rules to prevent participation by transgender women athletes. Buried on page five of its "Athlete Safety Policy" is a paragraph stating, "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 and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act." While that mentions nothing about transgender athletes, the executive order signed by Trump is designed to prevent transgender girls and women from participating in sports. In a letter sent Tuesday to the U.S. Olympic community, USOPC president Gene Sykes and CEO Sarah Hirshland said the change came after "a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials" following the executive order, which Trump signed in February. "As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations. The guidance we've received aligns with the Ted Stevens Act, reinforcing our mandated responsibility to promote athlete safety and competitive fairness," the letter read. The letter also said individual national governing bodies are required to update their policies to align with the USOPC's change, first reported by the New York Times. Prior to this change, which was adopted last month, the USOPC had said decisions on transgender participation were to be made based on "fairness" and should be up to each individual sport's governing body. "In our world of elite sport, these elements of fairness demand that we reconcile athlete inclusion and athlete opportunity. The only way to do that for all genders, and specifically for those who are transgender, is to rely on real data and science-based evidence rather than ideology," according to a page on the USOPC's website, which now carries a note at the top referring to the Athlete Safety Policy. The United States has never had an openly transgender woman athlete compete at the Olympics. In fact, in the 20 years the IOC allowed the participation of transgender athletes, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard is the only openly transgender woman to compete at an Olympic Games. Hubbard was knocked out in the opening round. But inclusion of transgender athletes has become an increasingly charged political issue, despite a lack of science showing they have a competitive advantage. World Athletics and World Aquatics have both banned transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing, and International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry last month announced the creation of a task force to examine how to "protect the female category." The USOPC had said little about the issue. But with Los Angeles hosting the Summer Games in 2028, it has been careful not to say or do anything that could draw the ire of the Trump administration. While the USOPC is not funded by the government, as many other countries are, it does use government services. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, will help provide security for Los Angeles.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
US Olympic and Paralympic Committee tabs former surgeon general Murthy for spot on board
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is returning to the board of directors at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the federation announced Tuesday. This will be Murthy's second stint on the 18-person board. He was last on the USOPC board from 2020-2021, before stepping down to resume his role as surgeon general, a job he also held during the Obama administration. Murthy joins Purdue president Mung Chiang on the board and the USOPC is still looking for someone to fill out the term of John Naber, an athlete-elected member who stepped down last year. Sprint great Allyson Felix is also new to the board as a result of her election last year to the International Olympic Committee's athletes' commission. ___ AP sports: The Associated Press
