Catholic bishops praise Trump’s executive order barring men from women’s sports

President Donald J. Trump signs an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports in the East Room at the White House on Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 7, 2025 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Two committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) expressed their approval of President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans biological men from competing in women’s sports.

“We welcome the president’s executive order that protects opportunities for women and girls to compete in sports safely and fairly,” Diocese of Winona–Rochester, Minnesota, Bishop Robert Barron and Bishop David M. O’Connell of Trenton, New Jersey, said in a joint statement. 

Barron is the chairman of the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth and O’Connell is the chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education.

“Consistent with the Catholic Church’s clear teaching on the equality of men and women, we reaffirm that, in education and in sports as elsewhere, policies must uphold human dignity,” the statement added. “This includes equal treatment between women and men and affirmation of the goodness of a person’s body, which is genetically and biologically female or male.”

Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 5 that prohibits any K–12 school, college, or university that receives federal funds from allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports or use women’s locker rooms. Any educational institution that violates the rule would lose federal funding.

On Feb. 6, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) banned biological men from competing on women’s teams to comply with the order. The NCAA is the largest college athletic association and governs the athletic policies for the highest levels of college sports.

“Athletics not only provide valuable educational opportunities, fostering discipline, teamwork, and personal growth, but they also serve as a celebration of the human body as a gift from God,” the bishops said. 

The bishops cited Catholic teaching on human sexuality as expressed in the catechism: “Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. ‘Being man’ or ‘being woman’ is a reality which is good and willed by God.”

Additionally, the bishops noted that in accordance with respect to the dignity of every human person, the Church also “stands firmly against all unjust discrimination, including against those who experience gender discordance, who are equally loved by God.”

“Students who experience gender dysphoria bear the full measure of human dignity, and they therefore must be treated with kindness and respect,” the statement added. “Similar to their peers, those students must be assured the right to participate in or try out for co-educational activities in accord with their biological sex.”