Homeland Security has entered the gender war, announcing Monday it will refuse to issue visas to foreign biologically male athletes who seek to compete in the U.S. as women.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it was carrying out President Trump’s executive order demanding government agencies pursue policies to keep “men out of women’s sports.” The goal, the agency said, is to “guarantee an even playing field” for women.
Foreign male athletes can be barred under the new policy if they have competed in women’s sports in the past.
“Men do not belong in women’s sports,” said Matthew Tragesser, an agency spokesperson. “It’s a matter of safety, fairness, respect, and truth that only female athletes receive a visa to come to the U.S. to participate in women’s sports.”
USCIS said the policy will apply to those seeking to come under the O-1A, E11 and E21 visas, which welcome foreigners who have exceptional or extraordinary ability in an area, and foreigners seeking national interest waivers to skip over job certification requirements.
The agency said a male athlete competing in a women’s sport shouldn’t qualify as an exceptional case deserving of a visa. That athlete also doesn’t demonstrate an extraordinary ability that would qualify for the national interest waiver.
“USCIS is closing the loophole for foreign male athletes whose only chance at winning elite sports is to change their gender identity and leverage their biological advantages against women,” Mr. Tragesser said.
It’s not clear how many people would be affected by the policy.
The next Summer Olympics is scheduled for Los Angeles in 2028. The games have been riven with questions about transgender athletes in recent years.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee earlier this year adopted its own ban on transgender men competing in women’s events, replacing a previous policy that had left decisions up to each sport’s controlling body.
Rosemary Jenks, policy director at the Immigration Accountability Project, said it was a no-brainer for USCIS to adopt the change.
“The president has an executive order on this. It should not be surprising to anyone that USCIS would announce that policy,” she said. “I think probably 80% of the American people agree with it.”
Mr. Trump has ordered the government as a whole to redirect its efforts away from special consideration for transgender persons — and particularly those born male but who now identify as female.
He specifically ordered the State and Homeland Security departments to restrict admission of “males seeking to participate in women’s sports.”
The State Department moved on the order in February, allowing its officers to deny visas if there was a “reasonable suspicion” that an applicant’s listed sex didn’t match the sex at birth. That policy appears to apply beyond just athletes.
The State Department has also attempted to block a non-binary marker on passports.
A federal judge issued a blockade on that move.
At Homeland Security, officials complained last month that the department was forced to release an illegal immigrant who was born male but now identifies as a female after a judge objected to the migrant being held in a men’s detention facility.
Judge Amy Baggio, a Biden appointee to the court in Oregon, issued a ruling finding that the migrant, identified in court documents by initials O.J.M., was being held in violation of her procedural due process rights.
The department vehemently objected, saying it would “not buy into radical gender ideology when detaining illegal aliens.”
