According to South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace, a member of the House of Representatives, the decree aims to "defend the rights of female athletes who have fought their whole lives to be able to compete at the highest level".
According to the decree, trans people born as men are excluded from participating in girls' and women's sports and are not allowed to use locker rooms intended for women.
The educational institutions that violate the new law are excluded from the possibility of receiving federal grants.
Only two genders in the USA
Already on his first day as president, Donald Trump signed a decree stating that the official stance of the US government is that there are only two genders.
Trump then also revoked Joe Biden's order, which allowed trans people to serve in the US army, as well as directives aimed at preventing discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The issue of gender affiliation and trans people's rights in sports has been debated in recent years, and several sports have reviewed their rules.
American swimmer Lia Thomas became in 2022 the first trans woman to become a college champion in the USA, but she was not allowed to compete internationally.
According to the International Swimming Federation's trans rules, which were introduced in 2022, a person born as a man must have undergone gender correction before the age of 12 to be allowed to compete with women. Lia Thomas began her gender correction at the age of 20 in 2019.
Thomas took the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but did not receive a favorable ruling for her appeal.
"Protect women's sports"
Even the International Athletics Federation has said no to trans people in women's classes. The federation's chairman, Sebastian Coe, is now running to become the new chairman of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and said in an interview in November that women's sports must be protected.
If we don't protect women's sports and don't have clear and unequivocal guidelines for doing so, we risk losing women's sports. Personally, and as a leader of an Olympic sport, I don't want that to happen, Coe told AFP.
Last summer, a debate erupted over the participation of female boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting in the Paris Olympic Games. The International Boxing Federation IBA claimed that they had not passed a gender test in 2023, but the IOC said that the test was not valid and gave both boxers the green light for the Olympic Games.
Both then won Olympic gold.
I don't think you can take lightly sports like boxing. You need to have clear rules, which are needed in all sports, Coe said about the debate.
