LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Some national and state leaders marked National Girls and Women in Sports Day by taking action on transgender athletes in women's sports.
President Donald Trump signed a new executive order banning transgender women from participating in women's sports.
“This will effectively end the attack on female athletes at public K-12 schools and virtually all U.S. colleges and universities,” Trump said before a crowd of young girls and women during an afternoon ceremony at the White House.
National Politics
Trump signs order restricting transgender women from competing in female sports
Nevada Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony and his Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports also held a rally in Carson City.
One Nevada athlete at the rally said she felt Trump's executive order showed he was listening to athletes' concerns.
“I am very grateful that it is reaching higher levels of government, that it's getting out there and that President Trump is taking a stand with us,” Nevada high school volleyball player Kendall Lewis told reporters. “And he is truly voicing that it is not OK for a biological male to compete against females."
Earlier this year, Anthony created his task force to spearhead support for legislation governing transgender women in female sports. The lieutenant governor says there are bills in both the Assembly and the Senate to “fight for these female athletes.”
Last month, sports reporter Alex Eschelman had the chance to sit down with the chair of Anthony’s task force, Marshi Smith, about their stance on this controversial topic.
"We are not in opposition to how those individuals choose to live their life,” Smith told Eschelman. “What we do want to do is make sure that good sports policy is grounded in really measurable and immutable characteristics like sex — male and female — to ensure that eligibility criteria for the women’s category is preserved for female athletes."
Last year, the topic of transgender participation in sports shook the collegiate volleyball world. Multiple Mountain West Conference teams forfeited matches against San Jose State University, citing reports that the school's roster included a transgender woman.
UNLV’s volleyball team took a vote and unanimously chose to play both of their matches against the Spartans, winning both. However, the match between the Spartans and the University of Nevada, Reno was called off when players said they wouldn’t participate as a form of protest against San Jose State.
“On Oct. 13, a majority of the Wolf Pack women’s volleyball team issued a statement to the University informing it that the team had decided it was forfeiting the scheduled match with San José State University,” UNR President Brian Sandoval wrote in October. “While players are not authorized to forfeit the match — this decision is one that only the University and our Department of Athletics can officially make — the University continues to support the rights of the volleyball players who choose not to participate.”
Channel 13 reached out to Sandoval for his reaction to Trump's executive order, but he was unavailable for comment. We also reached out to UNLV's athletics department and have not yet heard back.
