Trump has said he wants to ban trans athletes from competing. The reality is more nuanced

One of President-elect Donald Trump's most popular talking points during his campaign centered on the future of transgender athletes.

Trump revisited the topic several times in the months and weeks leading up to the election, suggesting in his rallies that one of the goals of his second term would be to prevent men from participating in women's sports. Millions were spent on advertising that turned an issue affecting a tiny minority of competitors into a divisive issue.

More than half of voters and the vast majority of Trump supporters said support for transgender rights in government and society has gone too far, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationally.

Exactly what Trump will do when he takes office on January 20 is unclear. His transition team has not released any details, although the president-elect said during his campaign that the process would be easy.

In a way, it could be. In others, things could be much murkier.

What did Trump say during the campaign?

A lot. Trump seemed to identify the debate over the rights of transgender people in general and trans athletes in particular as one likely to generate both attention and support beyond his usual base.

Trump often used language about gender identity that LGBTQ+ advocates view as wrong and harmful. He also falsely referred to two female Olympic boxers as men and said their ability to compete in the Paris Games was humiliating for women, even though Imane Khelif of Algeria and Li Yu-ting of Taiwan had been referred to as women at the birth and identified as women.

Trump ramped up his rhetoric as Election Day approached, telling the crowd at a rally at Madison Square Garden in October: “We will eliminate… transgender madness from our schools and we will stop men from participating in women's sports .

What are the presidential powers in this matter?

Trump declared on day one that he would cut federal funding for any school promoting critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content about our children.

There are several layers to this, but the most immediate would be how his administration interprets Title IX, the law best known for its role in pursuing gender equality in sports and preventing sexual harassment of women. campus.

Each administration has the authority to issue its own interpretations of historic legislation. The last two presidential administrations, including Trump's, offer for the first time a glimpse of the push-pull involved.

Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education during Trump's first term, issued a Title IX policy in 2020 that narrowed the definition of sexual harassment and required colleges to investigate complaints only if they are reported to certain officials .

The Biden administration reversed that policy in April with one of its own that said the rights of LGBTQ+ students would be protected under federal law and included new safeguards for victims of campus sexual assault. The policy does not explicitly address transgender athletes. Yet more than half a dozen Republican-led states immediately challenged the new rule in court.

Trump could once again change how Title IX sports regulations are perceived and enforced.

All Trump has to say is: We're going to read the rule the traditional way, said Doriane Lambelet Coleman, a professor at Duke Law School.

What is the difference between sex and gender and how would it affect Title IX?

Under the first Trump administration, the government interpreted gender as the sex assigned to a person at birth.

The Biden administration chose to interpret sex as a gender identity in Title IX, which could be interpreted as protecting trans athletes from discrimination if they wanted to participate in a sport that matched their gender identity, and not the sex they were assigned at birth.

Trump is widely expected to revise the definition of sex to bring it in line with the sex assigned to a person at birth.

How many transgender athletes actively compete?

This figure is subject to debate.

The NCAA, for example, does not track data on transgender athletes among the 544,000 who currently compete on 19,000 teams at various levels across the country, although NCAA President Charlie Baker testified Tuesday before the Congress said it was aware of fewer than 10 active NCAA athletes who identified as transgender.

A 2019 survey of high school students by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) found that only 5% of respondents reported participating in a sport that matches their gender identity.

It might be easier to do the math at a macro level. A 2022 report from the Williams Institute estimates that approximately 300,000 high school students (ages 13-17) identify as transgender. It's unclear how many of these young people participate in sports, but it's likely a tiny fraction.

Yet any case of a transgender athlete competing or even suspected of competing attracts inordinate attention, from Lia Thomas swimming for the University of Pennsylvania to the volleyball team's just-concluded season from San Jose State.

What are the rules at high school level?

This varies from state to state. About half of states have passed legislation that prohibits transgender athletes from competing in the category corresponding to their gender identity.

The AP reported in 2021 that in many cases, states banning transgender athletes could not cite instances where their participation was problematic. When Utah state lawmakers overrode Gov. Spencer Cox's 2022 veto, the state had only one transgender girl playing K-12 sports who would be affected by the ban . It did not regulate the participation of transgender boys.

It's a solution in search of a problem, said Cheryl Cooky, a professor at Purdue University who studies the intersection of gender, sports, media and culture.

And at the college level?

The NCAA established a policy in 2010 that requires trans athletes who were assigned male at birth to complete at least one year of testosterone suppression treatment before being eligible to compete on a women's team. Trans athletes who were assigned female at birth and transitioned to male can compete on a men's team, but if they have received testosterone treatment, they are not eligible to compete on a women's team.

Athletes must meet their chosen sport standards for documented testosterone levels at various times throughout the season.

In 2022, the NCAA revised the policy in what the organization called an attempt to align with national sports governing bodies (NGBs). If the NGB does not have a policy for trans athletes, then it turns to the international federation that oversees the sport. If there is no international federation policy, the previously established Olympic policy criteria would be followed.

The NCAA's decision to put NGBs in charge has proven more restrictive in some sports like swimming. A policy introduced by World Aquatics in 2023 allows transgender athletes to compete in women's races only if the athlete can prove she has not experienced any part of male puberty.

Things are much more definitive for schools that participate in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, the governing body for more than 200 small schools across the country. The NAIA voted unanimously earlier this year to ban transgender athletes from competing in women's sports.

And what about Olympic level?

The International Olympic Committee has essentially passed the buck, deferring to the international federations for each sport.

However, this could change when a new IOC president replaces Thomas Bach, who is retiring.

Former track and field star Sebastian Coe, now head of World Athletics, is among the candidates in the March elections. Coe is a strong advocate for limiting participation to cisgender women.

What could the future look like?

The numbers in the near future will be volatile, with the state-by-state map of transgender athletes reflecting what abortion access looks like post-Dobbs. Democrats disagree on how to approach the subject.

It is possible that a Republican-led Congress could introduce another form of the Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act, proposed in 2021 and 2023. The 2023 version of the bill, which would ban school sports programs to allow people whose biological sex at birth was a man who wanted to participate in programs aimed at women or girls. The idea passed the House, but was not voted on in the Senate.

Republicans hold a slim majority in the Senate and remain short of the 60-vote threshold needed for passage, but given the heated debate surrounding transgender athletes, the issue could quickly return to the forefront. This could come even as Sarah McBride, a Maryland Democrat, becomes the first openly transgender person in Congress.

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AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar contributed to this report.

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