U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with players of the Juventus soccer team in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 18, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
For many years, right-wing pundits mocked and ridiculed women's sports. But these days, President Donald Trump and other MAGA Republicans are claiming to be defenders of women's sports, which, they claim, are under attack from transgender activists.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump announced an anti-transgender executive order and declared, "I am proud to be the President to SAVE Women’s Sports."
Trump also wrote, "From now on, women's sports will be only for WOMEN."
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But journalist Alex Kirshner, in an op-ed published by Slate on June 24, argues that if Trump really cared about women's sports, he would see to it that female athletes were adequately paid for their work.
"Trump's dedication to the cause did not last long," Kirshner writes. "In the time since signing the anti-trans order, the president has ensured that hundreds of millions of dollars that might have gone to female athletes will go to men instead. On July 1, college sports will shift to a new economic model. This is an attempt to correct for a few years of a messy system. Since 2021, players have been allowed to earn money from third parties in marketing and endorsement deals."
Kirshner continues, "In practice, though, the system has meant that donor “collectives” just pool money to pay athletes to play for their favorite teams, under the thin guise that the deals are somehow for appearances or endorsements."
Kirshner references the settlement in the case House v. NCAA, which, the journalist notes, "involves the distribution of $2.8 billion in back damages to athletes."
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"Thanks in part to Trump," Kirshner laments, "many women playing college sports will likely get nothing at all, and women's teams' share of the settlement will be in the neighborhood of 10 percent, not half. In February, Trump's Education Department rescinded the (Joe) Biden team's guidance, calling it an '11th-hour' overreach and giving athletic programs the green light not to worry about women's sports as they prepared their House budgets…. Trump's interest in women's sports is not actually in investment in the athletes who participate. Instead, it is in leveraging the issue as one of the ways to continue to politicize and push his agenda on trans issues."
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Read Alex Kirshner's full Slate op-ed at this link (subscription required).