Virginia Governor Bans Transgender Athletes From Female Athletics, Locker Rooms

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order on Oct. 2 directing the state’s Board of Health to set regulations that will prevent males from participating in female-only sporting events, or using spaces such as locker rooms “where females are likely to be in a state of undress.”

“Women deserve an equal opportunity to participate in competitive sports, and those opportunities must be safe, fair, and in compliance with federal law,” Youngkin’s order said.

He cited several recent incidents, including the suspension of two young men who questioned why a female student was in the boys’ locker room, and another where a male was watching female students change clothes in the girls’ locker room. In addition, more than a dozen witnesses testified after a male sex offender allegedly exposed himself in front of female children in school locker rooms in Northern Virginia, said the governor.

“It is an embarrassment and a tragedy that certain individuals continue to turn a blind eye to these violations of the law and of the health, safety, privacy, dignity, and respect of these students,” Youngkin wrote. “This must stop.”

A recent investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found that five school districts in Virginia were violating Title IX.

That law, enacted over five decades ago, prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding.

Another investigation by the Education Department and the Department of Health and Human Services made a similar finding on Sept. 30 against the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League.

The Virginia governor’s action mirrors moves by President Donald Trump’s administration to address the issue of transgender-identifying men competing in women’s sports. In February, Trump issued an executive order aiming to defund school systems that allowed the practice.

Trump’s administration has since moved to compel states to allow only females in women’s sports. In April, the government withheld funds from Maine over this issue, although that action was blocked in federal court, and the administration eventually settled with the state.

In 2023, the Youngkin administration issued a guidance document that laid out the state’s policy for dealing with transgender students.

The policy gives parents the right to decide “what names, nicknames, and/or pronouns, if any, shall be used for their child by teachers and school staff while their child is at school,” or whether the child is allowed to participate in “any counseling or social transition at school that encourages a gender that differs from their child’s sex.”

Youngkin’s recent order comes after a July report by Concerned Women for America that highlighted the effect of males competing in female sports.

The group found that, since the mid-1980s, women had lost over 1,900 gold medals, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money, to transgender-identifying men.

“The goal, really, is to bring to light just one piece of the loss that American [women]—and women in general—have experienced due to transgender ideology,” Penny Nance, the organization’s CEO, told The Epoch Times in August.

“This is just talking about gold medals; we didn’t get into all the trophies, and the records and the scholarships, and the many different ways that women have been wronged.”