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transgender athletes
Trump Pressures Top Universities to Sign 'Extortion Agreement' for Federal Funds
"It is a document of unconditional surrender," one professor said of a compact "urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump's political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds."
Oct 02, 2025
President Donald Trump's war on academia continued this week with letters pressuring the leaders of top universities across the United States to sign his "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" for priority access to federal funding and other "positive benefits."
The New York Times reported that "letters were sent on Wednesday to the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia."
The letters "urging campus leaders to pledge support for President Trump's political agenda to help ensure access to federal research funds" were signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and two key White House officials, according to the Times.
The compact, published by the Washington Examiner, states that "no factor such as sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations, or proxies for any of those factors shall be considered, explicitly or implicitly, in any decision related to undergraduate or graduate student admissions or financial support, with due exceptions for institutions that are solely or primarily comprised of students of a specific sex or religious denomination."
"Signatories commit themselves to revising governance structures as necessary to create such an environment, including but not limited to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas," the 10-page document continues.
In an apparent response to campus protests against US complicity in Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the compact adds:
Universities shall be responsible for ensuring that they do not knowingly: (1) permit actions by the university, university employees, university students, or individuals external to the university community to delay or disrupt class instruction or disrupt libraries or other traditional study locations; (2) allow demonstrators to heckle or accost individual students or groups of students; or (3) allow obstruction of access to parts of campus based on students’ race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Signatories commit to using lawful force if necessary to prevent these violations and to swift, serious, and consistent sanctions for those who commit them.
The compact also requires strict definitions of gender, including for sports, as well as limits on the enrollment of international students. Transgender athletes and foreign scholars have been key targets of the Trump administration.
While Kevin P. Eltife, chair of the University of Texas Board of Regents, told the Times that the school system "is honored" that its flagship in Austin was "selected by the Trump administration for potential funding advantages" and "we enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately," the other eight schools declined to comment.
The president has already used federal funding to push for changes at major institutions, waging battles over admission policies, trans athletes, and campus protests against US government support for Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip. Brown and UPenn are two of the schools that have already reached agreements with the administration, while others have fought back.
Critics were swift to condemn the Trump administration's effort as "blackmail," "extortion," and a "shakedown."
"This administration is extorting universities to sign away academic freedom—nothing meritocratic or 'small government' about it," said Salomé Viljoen, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School, on social media.
The compact was decried as a "loyalty oath" and "political bribe." Damon Kiesow, the Knight chair for journalism innovation at the Missouri School of Journalism, said that "it is a document of unconditional surrender."
Edward Swaine, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, warned that "this steps boldly toward a scheme in which the federal government's role in relation to all colleges and universities, public and private, is akin to how state governments presently govern state institutions."
"Federalism aside, at what point does every school become a state actor?" he asked.
Despite Republican officials' long-standing opposition to student debt relief and tuition-free higher education, the compact also calls for a five-year tuition freeze and free tuition for students studying "hard sciences" if a school's endowment exceeds $2 million per undergraduate student.
Richard W. Painter, the chief White House ethics counsel under former President George W. Bush and now a University of Minnesota law professor, said Thursday that "the Trump administration is absolutely right that universities must freeze tuition."
"Price gouging of students and wasteful spending must stop," he added. "The administration's obsession over 'definition of gender' is a silly sideshow undermining higher ed reform."
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The Spreaders of the Trans Athlete Moral Panic Live in a Fact-Free Fantasyland
As political mayhem continues to unfold across the country and wider world, it is vital to remember that trans rights are human rights. Full stop.
Mar 21, 2025
During his recent speech to U.S. Congress, President Donald Trump turbocharged his manufactured moral panic targeting the trans community. “I signed an order making it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” he gloated. “I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women’s sports.” Banishing trans people from public life was just “common sense,” he declared.
Trump’s bilious spectacle was to be expected, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom only made things worse when, days later, he claimed during conversation with neofascist MAGA cretin Charlie Kirk that the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.” Newsom added that “the issue of fairness is completely legit. So, I completely align with you.” He concluded, “That’s easy to call out: the unfairness.”
As with so many things that gush from Trump’s gullet, his remarks were brutish bunk. But Newsom, who often tries to shield himself with the fact that he supported marriage equality as far back as 2004, also stood on shaky factual ground. Moreover, in his cringey conversation with Kirk, Gov. Newsom let slip the reason why both he and Trump are so willing to sacrifice the human rights of trans people: electoral politics. In public polling, Newsom said of Democrats, “We’re getting crushed on it.”
Political messaging should be based on shared values, not the short-term political whims of the opportunistic.
In this political environment, so much that passes for “common sense” argument is just evidence-free, anti-science vibes. But facts still matter, or at least they should. “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom,” writes historian Timothy Snyder in his pithy book On Tyranny.
When it comes to any supposed advantages that trans women athletes may have, the actual facts are quite different from the “common-sense” hype. The scientific evidence has repeatedly shown that trans women who have undergone hormone replacement therapy for more than a year actually do not have an advantage. One in-depth review of existing scientific literature on transgender athlete participation in competitive sport published between 2011 and 2021 found that “trans women who have undergone testosterone suppression have no clear biological advantages over cis women in elite sport.”
Another study found that transgender women athletes could actually be disadvantaged: “Compared with cisgender women,” the study found, “transgender women have decreased lung function, increasing their work in breathing.” Douglas Oberlin, an exercise physiologist who reviewed the scientific evidence related to transgender athletes’ performance, notes that “the limited information available does not suggest that trans men and trans women have much, if any, athletic advantage post-transition.” Oberlin also highlights that sport federations focus on average differences between cis and trans athletes but overlook performance variations within cis athletes.
Clearly, more research is needed before creating exclusionary policies. But given the small number of transgender athletes, Oberlin cautions that excluding them from sports solely due to concerns about inequality or injury risk “may be a solution in search of a problem.”
Back in the terfy, moral-panic fantasyland, such rational caution is nowhere to be found. In their own ways, Trump and Newsom treat trans people as if they were mere political chits to be swapped and bartered. This despite the fact that experts from the United Nations have asserted, “Categoric exclusions of trans and intersex women from women’s sports is a prima facie violation of human rights.” As sports writer Frankie de la Cretaz told The Nation, “Denying a group of people their basic human rights is morally reprehensible and illegal, regardless of the size of that community.”
Forming political values based on polling numbers is bereft of ethics. After all, interracial marriage didn’t surpass 50% approval in the United States until the mid-1990s. In 2005, 68% of those polled thought same-sex marriage should not be recognized as valid whereas today the very opposite is the case. Political messaging should be based on shared values, not the short-term political whims of the opportunistic.
Let’s be absolutely clear: The stakes are sky-high. The endgame of this bipartisan, anti-trans witch hunt is twofold. On the practical side, it enables the bracing possibility of raving randos demanding genital checks from the sidelines of youth sports events for kids who don’t conform to their strict versions of gender. (In West Virginia, Republicans have already voted through legislation green-lighting healthcare providers’ ability to perform genital checks on children without parental consent). But more broadly, the endgame is trans banishment. As journalist Dave Zirin put it, “The ‘pro-trans in everything but sports’ position can metastasize into… a broader anti-trans stance, the forcible erasure of transgender people from society.”
The push to expel trans women from elite sport, aided and abetted by Democrats like Gavin Newsom, is stoked by what Judith Butler calls “fascist passions.” As M. Gessen recently wrote, “The message, consistent and unrelenting, is that trans people are a threat to the nation. The subtext is that we are not of this nation.”
Fortunately, despite Trump and Newsom’s craven political opportunism, not all elected officials are singing from their grim hymnal. Democrats in the U.S. Senate recently scuppered a Republican bill that would have banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. In Montana, elected officials went further, with more than two dozen Republicans flipping the Trumpain script and voting against a slew of anti-trans bills.
As political mayhem continues to unfold across the country and wider world, it is vital to remember that trans rights are human rights. Full stop. One day a thriving trans community will be as normalized as interracial or same-sex marriage. But this won’t happen automatically. It’s time to stand up. This battle is far from over.
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'Bigoted Folks' Love Trans Sports Ban, Says AOC—And So Do CEOs for the Diversion It Creates
"Los Angeles is on fire right now, and this is the number one priority this majority has," said the congresswoman.
Jan 14, 2025
While Republicans claimed a bill restricting transgender girls' participation in school sports was aimed at protecting "our culture and civilization" on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the legislation benefits the corporate class as it distracts from true life-threatening emergencies faced by communities across the country.
"Thank you for your concern about women for the first time that I've seen," said the New York Democrat on the House floor, noting that Republicans have consistently voted against the Violence Against Women Act and backed abortion bans that have stripped women of the ability to control their own bodies proven deadly.
But contrary to the GOP's claims that barring transgender girls and women from playing on sports teams that align with their gender will protect girls from assault, Ocasio-Cortez suggested, the biggest beneficiaries of the legislation include corporate executives whose companies do far more harm to American families than transgender athletes.
"I know who loves this bill," said the congresswoman. "Yes, bigoted folks love this bill. Assaulters love this bill. But also, CEOs love this bill. Because Los Angeles is on fire right now, and this is the number one priority this majority has."
The bill passed 218-206, with the entire Republican caucus supporting it and all but two Democrats voting no. If the legislation is signed into law, schools that receive federal funding would be barred from allowing transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams.
Republicans have poured $111 million on political ads regarding the issue in the past year, as communities in the Southeast have suffered catastrophic hurricane damage and homelessness has soared by 18%.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) agreed with Ocasio-Cortez's comments about the distraction caused by the transgender sports bill.
"Republicans fearmonger about the trans community to divert attention from the fact they have no real solutions to help everyday Americans," said Bonamici. "Transgender students, like all students, they deserve the same opportunity as their peers to learn teamwork, to find belonging and to grow into well-rounded adults through sports."
Ocasio-Cortez added that the bill, which lacks an enforcement mechanism, would open the door to "genital examinations" of student athletes as it would force schools to confirm the sex assigned at birth of each member of a school sports team.
"What this also opens the door for is for women to try to perform a very specific kind of femininity for the very kind of men who are drafting this bill, and to open up questioning of who is a woman because of how we look, how we present ourselves, and yes, what we choose to do with our bodies," said Ocasio-Cortez.
The so-called Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act was the subject of a letter signed by more than 400 civil society groups on Monday, who urged members of Congress to reject the "discriminatory proposal."
"Although the authors of the legislation represent themselves as serving the interests of cisgender girls and women, this legislation does not address the longstanding barriers all girls and women have faced in their pursuit of athletics," said the groups, led by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "We firmly believe that an attack on transgender youth is an attack on civil rights."
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