On Wednesday (Feb. 5), President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order mandating the end of biological men participating in women’s sports. The order, entitled “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” reads in part:
“Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.
The order threatens to withhold funding from educational institutions that refuse to comply with the order and defers to state attorney generals on how to enforce the law. It also extends beyond educational institutions into sporting associations and other leagues.
The order encouraged the U.S. Secretary of State to encourage the International Olympic Committee to revisit its policies on the participation of men in women’s sports.
The White House will also convene a special summit with major sports leagues and governing bodies to hear from female athletes harmed by bad policies.
Christians should applaud this action by the White House. The participation of transgender men in women’s sports is an injustice to female athletes and denies the creational reality of the goodness of God’s male and female design. Athletic competition is a way in which the differences between men and women are most stark. Healthy and fair competition and fair play in both male sports and female sports is good for human flourishing.
This is a perspective even many nonbelievers are coming around to believe. According to recent polling data, a majority of Americans believe athletes should only be allowed to compete on teams that conform to their birth gender.
The NCAA, in a response to the executive order, commended President Trump and promised to make this the standard for all of their institutions of higher education. This is a key factor in President Trump’s decisive electoral and popular vote win.
We can be grateful that he kept his campaign promise to bring more moral sanity to this very important issue. This is a welcome companion to an earlier executive order banning transgender surgeries for minors. In response, several major hospitals have discontinued this practice.
We should also be grateful for those who courageously spoke out against the moral insanity that reigned in our elite institutions, voices such as Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer; JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series; and the thousands of faithful Christian pastors, scholars and activists who refused to be silent.
It’s gratifying to see new government policies which align with God’s creational order, yet this is not the end of our witness on this issue. Our churches should both be eager to declare what is good and true and beautiful about biblical masculinity and femininity and read to help those who struggle with gender dysphoria find hope in the gospel and the resurrection of the body at the end of the age.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Daniel Darling is the director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a bestselling author.)
