by WorldTribune Staff, July 18, 2025 Real World News
President Donald Trump’s executive order banning biological males from competing in girls sports is being ignored by 18 states, according to a group’s compliance tracker.
Defending Education’s (DE) compliance tracker examines whether the 50 states are complying with “Title IX regarding single-sex spaces and single-sex interscholastic athletics” in line with Trump’s executive order “defending women from gender ideology extremism.”
Eighteen states were found to be openly defiant of the order that “protect[s] all-female athletic opportunities and all-female locker rooms” based on “public statements made by state officials or state policies,” the tracker says.
Those states are:
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
“While the majority of states are compliant with Title IX, there are still 18 states, including the District of Columbia, that have chosen noncompliance as their hill to die on,” Kendall Tietz, investigative reporter for Defending Education, said in a statement.
“While young female athletes and students are forced to share single-sex spaces with biological males, leaders in states like California and Maine continue to play politics at the expense of women’s rights,” Tietz said. “These are not optional guidelines; they are legal obligations designed to protect students from sex-based discrimination, including sexual harassment and assault.”
The Department of Education found California in violation of Title IX on June 25, “but the [state] entities have refused to comply with federal civil rights law in order to ensure the state can harm as many women as possible,” The Federalist’s Breccan Thies reported last week.
California’s Department of Education Superintendent Tony Thurmond published a statement on June 3 telling school administrators to keep allowing students to play on sports teams that mirror their “gender identity.”
After the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Maine for insisting that men should play women’s sports, Maine’s Attorney General Aaron Frey said there are “no concerns of safety” when it comes to females competing against males (and in some cases being seriously injured), and making women strip naked in front of men.
The “trans refuge” state, also known as Minnesota, also made it clear that it fully supports boys dominating girls sports in the state. “Female sports team participation in Minnesota is not restricted to the female sex,” the Minnesota House of Representatives said. “Nor will it be anytime soon.”
Maryland issued a statement in March making clear that “opportunities” will “remain accessible” for boys to play on girls teams, saying Maryland has “always been a state that values fairness, dignity, and inclusion.”
The statement also said Trump has “launched an all-out assault” on boys who say they are girls, calling for “[l]eaders in the public and private sectors at all levels … to make full-throated declarations that transgender, nonbinary, and intersex youth, adults, and families will be protected and supported in Maryland.”
The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA), the governing body for high school sports in New Jersey, said it hasn’t had any complaints about boys playing on girls’ teams, so the state is not going to abide by Trump’s order.
Washington’s Superintendent Chris Reykdal also published a statement in February saying Trump’s order to protect women is “disregarding the rule of law.”
Oregon and Vermont allow students to choose their “preferred gender identity” when it comes to playing on a sports team. New York and Rhode Island’s attorneys general and education commissioners published statements in February telling schools to ignore the president’s order to protect girls.
After Trump signed the executive order in January recognizing biological sex and barring men from playing in women’s sports, Georgia, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin soon after adopted policies or passed legislation requiring that men not be allowed to compete in women’s sports.
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