Karoline Leavitt is absolutely right.
When her boss signed the Executive Order titled “No Men in Women’s Sports” last week, the youngest White House Press Secretary in history said:
“It’s incredibly important Congress immediately acts on this priority. I think the President is really setting the tone, making this a very immediate priority . . .”
Trump’s order restoring female sports competition to born-females only (along with such things as the sanctity of their locker rooms) is overdue.
But Leavitt’s point is that it could be as temporary as The Donald’s four-year term unless Congress enacts a similar law before he leaves office.
She’s certainly not Riley Gaines, the collegiate swimmer-turned-activist who has led the resistance to the idea of males who say they’re females competing against athletes who have been female since birth.
But Leavitt knows a thing or two about women’s athletic competition.
She entered St. Anselm College, a small, private Benedictine liberal arts institution in New Hampshire, on a softball scholarship in 2016. As a freshman outfielder she was fourth on the team in home runs (3) and runs batted in (14), playing in 34 games, 30 of them starts.
Her interests gravitated away from sports to politics and government after she played another year of softball. While at St. Anselm she interned at Fox News, and after graduation became assistant White House press secretary under Kayleigh McEnaney during Trump’s first term.
According to govinfowatch, a service of the U.S. Government Publishing Office:
“An executive order can be revoked or modified by the president who issued it or a successor; by an act of Congress, if the president was acting on authority granted by Congress; or by a court ruling that the order was illegal or unconstitutional.”
Trump’s order predictably drew plenty of praise but dissent, too.
“It’s amazing that such an executive order is necessary . . .” said Gaines after the signing.
“I hate that the Democrats totally failed women and girls on this very clear issue of women’s sports being for females only,” added tennis great Martina Navratilova, a lifelong Democrat but staunch defender of fairness in women’s sports.
At the same time a Washington Post headline declared, “Trump’s new ban on athletes is latest attack on transgender policies.”
And Kelley Robinson, president of the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization in the nation, the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement:
“For so many students, sports are about finding somewhere to belong, not partisan policies that make life harder for them.”
She also asserted (without proof) that Trump’s order “exposes young people to harassment and discrimination, emboldening people to question the gender of kids who don’t fit a narrow view of how they’re supposed to dress or look.”
Rebutting that sentiment, the creator of Harry Potter, author J.K. Rowling, took to the social media platform X to express blistering condemnation of all on the left, which includes Robinson. Accompanying a photo of applauding female athletes surrounding Trump as he signed the order, Rowling wrote:
“Congratulations to every single person on the left who’s been campaigning to destroy women’s and girls’ rights. Without you, there’d be no images like this.”
Rowling also wrote, in part: “Gender ideology has undermined . . . women’s and girls’ safety, privacy and dignity . . .”
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), never known to boldly break ground on any even remotely controversial subject, “updated” its participation policy in response to Trump‘s order. The new policy allows only student-athletes assigned “female” at birth to participate in “women’s sporting competitions.”
NCAA President Charlie Baker, in a statement, waffled: “We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”
Winner of 18 Grand Slam singles titles, including nine at Wimbledon, Navratilova—who has been openly gay since 1981 and is an activist for gay rights—nonetheless called for Democrats to support legislation that would codify Trump’s executive order.
“More Dems need to step up here,” she said. “I know many who agree but are scared to speak up because of re-election. I say, do the right thing. Grow a spine.”
Karoline Leavitt agrees. And so do I.
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Denny Dressman’s 17th book, a collaboration with Kansas City artist Anthony High titled Black Baseball’s Heyday – Capturing An Era in Art and Words, will be published in late spring. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.