White House wants FIFA to change transgender policy, with Women’s World Cup guarantees on the line

White House wants FIFA to change transgender policy, with Women’s World Cup guarantees on the line

The White House wants FIFA to follow the lead of the International Olympic Committee by issuing a policy that would bar transgender athletes from competing professionally in women’s soccer — with President Donald Trump yet to sign off on required government guarantees for a United States-led bid to host the Women’s World Cup in 2031.

Trump has sought to clamp down on the involvement of transgender athletes in women’s sports since returning to office for a second term, and signed an executive order in February 2025, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”, to stop athletes from competing in women’s sports unless they were assigned female at birth.

In March, The Athletic reported that FIFA’s approval for a joint bid by the U.S., Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica had been pushed back from the FIFA congress on April 30 until much later in the year. This was largely because the White House has yet to provide any of the government guarantees — including commitments on visas, tax exemptions, safety and security — that are deemed obligatory for a World Cup bid to progress.

The guarantees are ordinarily processed through the host soccer federation — in this case, U.S. Soccer — before being passed on as part of the bidding package to FIFA.

Yet, despite the bid being formally presented in October, these guarantees have not yet arrived, and now it has become clearer why, according to multiple people familiar with the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

FIFA has only one bid for the 2031 edition, giving significant leverage to the White House, which wants FIFA’s policy on transgender players in women’s soccer changed before providing guarantees for the 2031 bid.

It is not known whether the White House has yet raised the matter directly with FIFA. Soccer’s world governing body did not respond to a request for comment.

FIFA has previously said the delay to the award of the U.S.-led bid for 2031 is to create a “standalone event” later in the year, which FIFA hopes “will highlight the growing power and influence of women’s football and FIFA’s flagship women’s tournament.” The confirmation of the 2035 bid, submitted jointly by England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, was also pushed back to form part of the same event.

When The Athletic contacted the White House, it was referred to the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup. In a statement, Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the task force, said, “President Trump’s leadership has set a new standard for protecting the integrity of women’s sports. His decisive action has codified that it shall ‘be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.’ We urge the entire sports world to commit to this principle and ensure fair competition for female athletes to thrive in this golden age of sports.”

In July 2025, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee changed its eligibility rules to block U.S. transgender athletes from competing in Olympic women’s and girls’ sports unless assigned female at birth, in compliance with Trump’s executive order on the issue. Then in March, the IOC announced compulsory gene testing that would bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s events, claiming that the new ruling “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.”

The testing, the IOC said, will also see some athletes with differences in sex development (DSD) and transgender women prevented from competing. It does not apply at the grassroots or recreational levels, but will come into effect for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

World Athletics, the governing body for track and field, introduced a ruling with similar requirements last July, in time for September’s Tokyo World Championships. FIFA, however, has spent almost four years reviewing its gender eligibility regulations, but has yet to issue any guidance beyond its 2011 gender verification regulations, which did not set testosterone levels.

Any wide-ranging rule change by FIFA may split opinion within women’s soccer, with high-profile players, such as retired U.S. women’s national team star Megan Rapinoe, previously saying politicians are weaponizing women’s sports to advance the issue.

She told Time magazine in 2023: “Oh, now we care about fairness? Now we care about women’s sports? That’s total bulls–t. And show me all the trans people who are nefariously taking advantage of being trans in sports. It’s just not happening.”

In 2025, Angel City FC player Elizabeth Eddy, who retired this year, wrote an article in the New York Post arguing the NWSL must stipulate that participants in the league are born with ovaries or undergo gene testing. Angel City captain Sarah Gorden and vice captain Angelina Anderson later spoke at a regularly scheduled press conference in which they appeared to rebut their teammate’s view. There are currently no transgender players in the NWSL.

For the Trump administration, the president’s stance on this matter has made it a priority issue. An NBC News poll in April 2025 reported that 75 percent of American adults said they do not believe transgender women should be permitted to participate in women’s sports. A Pew Research Center poll, also in early 2025, said that 66 percent of U.S. adults favor or strongly favor laws and policies that require transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth. However, the same poll found 56 percent of adults expressed support for policies aimed at protecting trans people from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces.

Trump’s executive order last year set out his concerns about “sport-specific governing bodies (who) have no official position or requirements regarding trans-identifying athletes.” It also ordered the U.S. Secretary of State to take steps to enforce this policy across international sports organizations, and instructed the U.S. government to “use all appropriate and available measures” to ensure the IOC amended its policies on the matter before the 2028 Olympic Games. It is not known whether the U.S. policy had a material impact, particularly as new IOC president Kirsty Coventry pledged during her campaign to introduce a ban on transgender women in women’s Olympic competitions.

People at U.S. Soccer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter, accepted last month that the guarantees for the 2031 bid had not arrived but insisted there had been “positive dialogue” with the relevant government departments and claimed they saw “a path forward”. U.S. Soccer declined to comment for this article.

Regulations relating to U.S. national teams are governed by FIFA, but for amateur soccer, U.S. Soccer policy had permitted players to register with the team with which a player identifies by gender, pending evidence such as government-issued ID or documents provided by a health care provider or counselor.

In November, however, U.S. Soccer stiffened its policy in accordance with Trump’s executive order and the USOPC’s rule changes, adding a clause that committed U.S. Soccer to “protect opportunities for athletes participating in sport” and “collaborate with various stakeholders (such as the IOC and international federations) to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

US Women's national team, NWSL, Women's Soccer, Olympics, FIFA Women's World Cup

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