The National Security Department will update visa policies to prevent transgender women from traveling to the US to participate in elite sporting events for women.
The United States citizenship and immigration services issued a guidance on Monday for prohibiting trans athletes from women who obtain “extraordinary capacity” visas to compete in women’s sports, as reported by the conservative news website The Daily Wire. The guide is based on an executive order that President Doanld Trump issued during the first weeks of his presidency that he intended to prohibit Trans women in women’s sports.
The guide does not use the transgender word or refers to trans women, but refers to “male athletes” who seek to compete in women’s sports.
Matthew Tragasser, spokesman for USCIS, said in a statement that the agency is “closing the escape of foreign male athletes whose only possibility of winning elite sports is to change their gender identity and take advantage of their biological advantages against women.”
“It is a matter of security, equity, respect and truth that only female athletes receive a visa to come to the United States to participate in women’s sports,” said Tregasser in the statement. “The Trump administration is defending the silent majority who have been victims of leftist policies that challenge common sense.”
The policy update applies to three categories of visas for people who have “extraordinary ability” in science, art, education, business or athletics. It also affects the exemptions of national interests, which allow applicants for self-section to renounce the labor certification of a green card if they can demonstrate that their work serves to the national interest.
The updated guide clarifies that USCIS “considers the fact that a male athlete has been competing against women as a negative factor” to determine if they are among the best of sport.
The guide adds that it is not of national interest of the United States to renounce the labor certification requirement for trans athletes “whose proposed effort is to compete in women’s sports.”
USCIS did not respond to a request for comments on how many people could be affected by the new policy or if there are recent examples of trans athletes who travel to the United States under the categories of affected visas.
Within the National Association of Collegiate Athletics, the non -profit group that regulates university athletics, around 25,000 international athletes competes in the NCAA sports of the total of more than 500,000 that compete every year, according to the association. While it is not clear how many NCAA athletes are Trans, the president of the association, Charlie Baker, said in a Senate committee in December that he knows less than 10.
The update of the USCIS policy may have affected athletes who planned to travel to Los Angeles for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games; However, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee prohibited Women Trans to compete in women’s sports last month.
Only a handful of trans athletes have competed in the Olympic Games. Laurel Hubbard became the first trans athlete to compete in the Olympic Games in Tokyo Games in 2021, although it did not measure. The American skater Alana Smith and the Canadian soccer star Quinn also competed in Tokyo games, and Quinn became the first non -binary and trans athlete on the medal when her team won the gold that year.
