- Title: 'It's incomprehensible' - Trans athletes weigh in on Trump's executive order
- Date: 6th February 2025
- Summary: HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, UNITED STATES (FEBRUARY 5, 2025) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOURNALIST AND ATHLETE, KARLEIGH WEBB, SAYING: "For a lot of trans youth out there, it just means once again the country is declaring war on them and this is going to be affect people's mental health. I'll admit it's affected mine and I'm 53 years old. I mean, but for young people comin
- Embargoed: 20th February 2025 00:08
- Keywords: Executive Order President Donald Trump Reactions Transgender Women's Sports
- Location: WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES; TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA; HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, UNITED STATES; LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- City: WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES; TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA; HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, UNITED STATES; LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- Country: US
- Topics: Lawmaking,North America,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA002919305022025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday (February 5, 2025) attempting to exclude transgender girls and women from female sports, a directive that supporters say will restore fairness but critics say infringes on the rights of a tiny minority of athletes.
The order directs the Department of Justice to make sure all government agencies enforce a ban on transgender girls and women from participating in female school sports under Trump's interpretation of Title IX, a law against sex discrimination in education.
Journalist Karleigh Webb, who writes for outsports.com and plays football at the Connecticut Ambush Football Club, spoke to Reuters about the order, and said, "For a lot of trans youth out there, it just means once again the country is declaring war on them and this is going to be affect people's mental health. I'll admit it's affected mine and I'm 53 years old. I mean, but for young people coming up, especially for these kids, especially in middle school or high school, this is very difficult."
She added, "This is brutal on them, it's harsh on their families and don't think that this is the end of it. This is part of a whole program to essentially erase transgender Americans from American life and yes, just to note, transgender Americans are just that - we're Americans."
Kristen Worley is not only a former professional cyclist but is the first transitioned athlete to successfully legally challenge the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on their gender policies. She now works to safeguard women in sports.
She said, "Today is another example at the highest level in seat and position in power of the world, watching the President of the United States articulate complete utter nonsense and doing complete harm to the most vulnerable communities in his own society, within the boundaries of the United States, which will have generational harm long term."
Before signing the executive order, Trump informed the mostly female crowd, that "men, claiming to be girls, have stolen more than 3,500 victories - that's a lot - and invaded more than 11,000 competitions designed for women."
Referring to Lia Thomas, the first openly transgender athlete to win nationally at swimming in 2022, Webb said, "One win does make domination. One kid winning one race at a national championship swim meet three years ago is not domination but they're trying to sell you this fear, because, let's face it, Donald Trump knows he's lying about transgender knows he's lying about transgender Americans."
Worley also addressed the figures Trump quoted, saying, "First of all the numbers, they don't exist. Understand that there's 0.01 percent gender variant people living in our society as a whole so it's a very tiny, tiny group of people that he's actually targeting and certainly the numbers in terms of gender performance are filled with inaccuracies as well."
However, for Worley, there was a silver lining in that the IOC has their own scientific data and findings regarding trans athletes. The IOC also abide by the United Nationals Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
She said, "I think somebody like a Thomas Bach, in the position of the leader of the IOC and other governments, whether it be Canada or other nations who have policies on human rights, that this is a time to stand up and to be able to say we could do better and we're not going to allow this type of language and this type of behavior to become a vacuum within our communities, let alone in the United States."
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