Wyoming members of Congress praised President Donald Trump’s executive order aiming to prevent athletes born male from participating in girls’ and women’s sports in K-12 schools and higher education.
Trump announced the order, which threatens to withhold federal funding for violators, at a White House ceremony Wednesday attended by lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming.
“With my action this afternoon we are putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding; there will be no federal funding,” Trump said, to cheers, at the ceremony.
Title IX is a 1972 federal law that aims to prohibit sex-based discrimination in programs including sports in federally funded schools. Rather than reading the law as a mandate to fund male and female sports equitably, some have argued the law means female-presenting transgender athletes should be able to compete with athletes born female.
Through legislation, Lummis and others have pushed back on such an interpretation.
”The far left’s attack on female athletes is the women’s rights issue of our time,” Lummis said in a statement to Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday. “Wyoming is home to a long list of trailblazers who have paved the way for women’s rights. … I celebrate our fearless female athletes and will continue to work to reverse the woke policies that threaten the safety of women and girls on the playing field.”
U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, agreed.
“Female athletes deserve a safe and level playing field. Biological males should not play on women’s sports teams,” he said in a statement to Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday. “To let them do so is disturbing, unfair, and unsafe. President Trump’s actions today will stop delusional ideologies from jeopardizing the hard work of women athletes.”
Last month, the U.S. House passed a bill seeking to accomplish the same goal as Trump’s executive order. That legislation, called the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025, is awaiting action in the Senate.
Barrasso, while not citing that measure specifically, indicated that Trump’s order does not close the book on legislative efforts in the same vein.
“Republicans will continue to fight to pass legislation to protect female athletes in Wyoming and across the country,” said Barrasso, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate.
A future president could reverse Trump’s executive order unilaterally, whereas a law might prove difficult to undo.
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, voted for the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 and predicted at the time that it would become law. Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress and the White House, though most legislation requires 60 votes in the Senate to pass -- and Republicans hold 53 seats.
In a statement at the time the House passed the bill last month, Hageman faulted the previous administration’s reading of Title IX.
“The Biden administration’s effort to fundamentally rewrite the very meaning and purpose of Title IX would threaten the integrity and safety of women’s sports nationwide by allowing men and boys to compete alongside women and girls,” she said at the time.
She elaborated on Tuesday, saying young girls have lost out on state championships and scholarships – “all in the name of prioritizing 'trans rights' over the rights of women and girls.”
Hageman supports Trump’s order fully, she added.
"The President’s executive order today reaffirms his commitment to protecting fairness in women and girls’ sports, keeping with his campaign promise to uphold Title IX’s original intent," Hageman said.
Barrasso and Lummis are co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate.
Trump said Wednesday that his executive order “will effectively end the attack on female athletes at public K-12 schools and virtually all U.S. colleges and universities.”
Sage Steele reacts while standing behind U.S. President Donald Trump as he recognizes her before he signs the "No Men in Women's Sports" executive order in the East Room of the White House on February 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images) 
Political activist and former competitive swimmer Riley Gaines (C) watches as U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks before signing the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order in the East Room at the White House on February 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images) 
U.S. President Donald Trump joined by women athletes signs the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order in the East Room at the White House on February 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images) 
Sage Steele (L) reacts while standing behind U.S. President Donald Trump as he recognizes her before he signs the "No Men in Women's Sports" executive order in the East Room of the White House on February 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)
Meanwhile In The Statehouse
Two Wyoming House of Representatives and one Senate bill introduced this session broach the issue of transgender athletes in female-designated sports.
One of the House bills would expand the state’s current ban on male participation in female sports from grades 7-12 in two directions, so that it would reach down to kindergarten and upward through college. That bill, House Bill 60, also would expand the current ban to non-public schools and intramural sports.
Another piece of legislation, House Bill 274, would expand the current ban to college, as would Senate File 44.
While Trump’s order and the Congressional bills contemplate federal de-funding, Wyoming’s bills would let people who can show harm from transgender sports participation sue schools and other state agencies.
That provision prompted some opponents to voice concerns during legislative debates this month and last. Other opponents of the sports bills have said they open even Wyoming’s biologically-born girls up to invasive genital checks and gender policing.
Proponents of the bills, conversely, have pointed to the two forfeit losses the University of Wyoming took this past fall, when its women’s volleyball team declined to play against a team with a transgender player.
This Executive Order
Rep. Ken Chestek, D-Laramie, is one of six Democrats in the Wyoming House of Representatives and a recently-retired UW law professor.
He’s not an expert on executive power but questioned what he characterized Wednesday as an authoritarian streak in the new president’s work.
“This does seem like a significant overreach, like so many things this president does,” Chestek wrote in a text to Cowboy State Daily. “He seems to be trying to grow the federal government to take control of every aspect of our lives, forcing his personal preferences on everybody without regard to other people’s freedoms.”
Under the Biden Administration, federal bureaus argued across multiple court cases that a U.S. Supreme Court provision promising workplace fairness for gay and transgender people should expand to school programs and facilities.
That area of law remains unsettled, but the U.S. Supreme Court could rule on it
State Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, said Trump’s order “blatantly defies civil rights protections and extends well beyond his proper executive authority, even if it were constitutional.”
Sen. Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston, was the key sponsor on Wyoming's earlier, 2023 ban on trans participation in girls' interscholastic sports.
She welcomes Trump's order, she said in a Wednesday text message.
"It provides the consistency we need across our country so we don't have issues similar to what happened in the Mountain West this fall," wrote Schuler. Had Trump's order been in place last fall, San Jose State University would not have been able to send a transgender player into volleyball matches without risking a loss of federal funds.
Schuler still supports Wyoming's pending legislation, as a "back-up in case there would be a change in (presidential) administration down the road," she wrote.
The sponsor of HB 274, Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, R-Cody, also lauded Trump’s order in a Wednesday text message to Cowboy State Daily.
“I welcome this executive order,” she wrote. “It’s past time that we protect our women and girls. This should be a signal to all Republicans in the Wyoming Legislature to join the national movement to defend sanity.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
