Chris Mosier is an out transgender athlete, and a trailblazer, and he’s speaking out about President Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s and girl’s school-sponsored sports.
Mosier told CNN, “Sports has just been the entry point to other areas of discrimination against our community, including health care access, safety in schools, removing things from school curriculum about transgender people, and so on.”
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Mosier is the first transgender athlete to represent the United States in international competition, first transgender athlete in the ESPN Body Issue, and first transgender athlete sponsored by Nike. He’s also the first transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympic Trials in the gender they identify.
“There’s no evidence that trans athletes have an advantage over anyone else in sports,” Mosier continued. “Trans athletes play sports for the same reasons as anybody else. For our love of the game, to be a part of a team, to challenge ourselves, and most of all, at the youth level, to have fun. And every young person deserves that opportunity to be their authentic self and to play the sports they love without compromising any part of who they are.”
Like many of the Trump executive orders, there are inherent contradictions and inconsistencies. The executive order gives instructions to the Department of Education, which President Trump has already strongly hinted he wants to close, and that legally must happen through a law passed in Congress. It threatens to defund education institutions that permit transgender athletes to participate in sports. The order falsely claims that including trans participation is a violation of Title IX, the federal legislation that prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational settings. In essence, it is encouraging discrimination by weaponizing protections against discrimination to target transgender people.
NCAA President Charlie Baker testified in December that he knew of “less than 10” transgender collegiate athletes out of 510,000 total. He did not specify how many of those athletes are transgender women, who are targeted by the order. Following the order, the NCAA announced that its Board of Governors voted to update the Association’s participation policy for transgender student-athletes. The new policy limits competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only. There is no evidence of a need for this new policy, which comes months before an actual instruction from the Dept of ed would require NCAA compliance.
Reports saying that the NCAA will conform to Trump’s order are also inaccurate and premature. Baker’s statement on Feb. 5 stated in part: “The NCAA Board of Governors is reviewing the executive order and will take necessary steps to align NCAA policy in the coming days, subject to further guidance from the administration.” The administration currently has no Secretary of Education, or a confirmation hearing scheduled for its nominee, who has yet to answer questions about her role in accusations of enabling sexual assault and exploitation of children. The Department of Education is the department tasked by the Trump administration with leading efforts to codify discrimination against transgender students.
Transgender people have been playing sports for decades. The NCAA and International Olympic Committee (IOC) have developed scientifically-based guidelines to ensure fairness and inclusion for at least a decade. And research shows states that include transgender participation have more girls participating in sports than states with bans.
Sports bans are part of a systematic and expanding targeting of transgender people and youth that has surged to include their medically-necessary and supported health care, book bans and curriculum bans, and access to the restroom. This ban follows executive orders that challenges the right of out trans people to serve in the military, and the right of transgender people to receive health care.
“So we can see that this is a part of a larger picture,” Mosier said. “And the talking point of trying to ban trans women and girls from girls and women’s sports has just been so incredibly divisive that it’s been what they’ve latched onto to kick off discrimination against our community.”
Journalist and activist for transgender rights Raquel Willis spoke to ABS News about the ban: “This has never really been about trans women and girls in sports. This has always been about trying to erase us from society, from access to health care, employment, education, safety and security. We are not going to let this happen. Trans folks and the folks who love us and support us and understand our brilliance are rising up.”
Willis continued, “I want us to see the connections around all of the attacks, the attacks on our immigrant family, our undocumented immigrant family, that is part and parcel of the attacks on transgender people. The attacks on our passports—right now we’re not able to change our gender to have our true identity reflected there, that is a document and security that ties us to the fights against immigrants right now. The attacks on DEI—if you have an administration who says you don’t exist, how are you going to get a job? We need a culture of deeper empathy.”
GLAAD also responded to the proposed ban: “This administration’s latest inaccurate and incoherent piece of paper smears an entire group of Americans but does not change the law or the facts. All women and girls, including transgender women and girls, should be welcome to play sports if they want, make decisions about their own bodies, be hired for jobs they are qualified for, and be free from lawless attacks by extremists in elected office.”
Many of Trump’s executive orders have been blocked in court as unconstitutional and illegal. Multiple orders are being challenged in court.
Donald Trump’s record of targeting LGBTQ people is documented on the Trump Accountability Tracker.