An MCHS student walks onto the field, ready to try out for the girls soccer team. Although she has played soccer for years, this student has never played on the girls team before. She is a transgender student, who only came out the year prior, and feels uncomfortable continuing to play for the boys team. The coach tells her she will have to submit a form to the IHSA to play for this team, but by the time that form can be approved she may not have the option to play on a girls team anymore.

On Feb. 5, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports.” This order bans transgender women and girls from competing in female sports categories, but only goes into automatic effect in publicly traded sports organizations.

Privately owned sports organizations are able to choose whether or not they will adopt this rule, and a large majority of MCHS sports are run through the privately owned IHSA, or Illinois High School Association.

“The IHSA developed its transgender policy in 2011,” said IHSA Executive Director, Craig Anderson, “and has continued to adapt its policy based on guidance from medical experts, as well as state law.”

Only a few years ago, the IHSA revised their rules for transgender athletes. As of now, transgender athletes must ask for permission to play on the team that they identify with by submitting an application to the IHSA directly. They will then look at the student’s medical documentation, and approve or deny the claim.

These applications are very specific, so they can be difficult for students to fill out which causes discouragement for the transgender athletes looking to join. As a result, very few applications are submitted. In 2024 only three male-to-female student requests were submitted from all IHSA member schools, and in 2023 only two were approved.

Because of this new executive order, the IHSA’s policy for transgender athletes is currently being assessed.

“The IHSA Board is currently reviewing the president’s executive order related to transgender participation in sports,” said Daniel Tully, President of the IHSA Board, “and will consider how to move forward once we have had time to better understand how it can be applied.”

If the IHSA doesn’t change their policy, then MCHS, as well as all other public schools under the IHSA, risks losing federal funding.

“If you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms,” Trump said at the executive order signing, “you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding.”

Title IX protects all people from “discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance,” but the way it is interpreted has differed over the years.

When former President Biden was in office, the government created an interpretation of Title IX that, in this scenario, would have protected the ability for transgender athletes to compete on teams aligning with their gender identity.

However, Trump’s current interpretation of Title IX is prohibiting the ability for transgender athletes because of the belief that it is discriminatory against cisgender women in sports to allow transgender women to compete.

This means that if the IHSA does change their rules, then transgender students will no longer have the option of playing in their identifying sport. But if they don’t change their rules, then this will be seen as a violation of the current interpretation of Title IX, and MCHS risks losing funding for programs like free or reduced lunch and special education.

MCHS will be greatly affected by what the IHSA decides, but because there are currently no transgender athletes in IHSA sports, the school may not see the full effects of their ruling immediately.

While there may not be any transgender athletes in MCHS’s IHSA sports, there is a transgender student on the powerlifting team, which is run by the privately owned Illinois High School Powerlifting Association.

Because the powerlifting program goes through the IHSPLA, they have different policies regarding transgender athletes.
“From the beginning of our involvement in IHSPLA all athletes have had an equal opportunity to participate in the powerlifting club,” said John Beerbower, powerlifting coach and IHSPLA Board Member, “regardless of gender.”

Beerbower added that the IHSPLA has very open rules that allow students to choose more freely what team they will compete on, but did not specify whether this policy was looking to be changed.

Because of the open rules that the IHSPLA has for gendered sports, Declan Riley, the only openly transgender athlete in MCHS sports, has found powerlifting to have a much simpler process for joining the team.

Riley explained that the process was relatively easy. He was able to play on the boys team after having one conversation with Beerbower, and was not required to be approved through the program.

MCHS may have few openly transgender athletes, but the school is still greatly affected by the lengthy request forms, executive orders and social pressures that transgender students face because it pushes them away from the sports offered.

Transgender students at MCHS specifically note how much social pressure is put onto them to leave the sporting community, including Liam*, a transgender student and former powerlifting athlete at MCHS.

“There is always this sense that I have to be as unproblematic as possible,” Liam said. “I do not want to walk down the hallway in a way that will upset someone. I do not want to talk in a way that will upset someone.”

In his experience, Liam has been laughed at, called slurs and even followed for simply expressing himself like any other student. Liam added that he felt very out of place in powerlifting since he was pressured by other students to not join the boy’s team, but also felt out of place staying on the girl’s team.

This is the reality for many transgender athletes all over the country, not just in McHenry. They don’t fit perfectly on one team or the other, so they end up feeling separated from the sport as a whole.

“It felt kind of awkward at times,” said Finley*, a transgender student and softball player, “and it was hard to connect with my teammates. I just felt kind of different from them.”

These types of disconnects are common for transgender people, in or out of sports, partially from the creation of new orders like this one, but many transgender people argue that it causes more of a divide than is necessary.

Riley said that this executive order acts as a way to push transgender athletes out of sports, and because of the already extremely low participation rates of transgender people in sports, it also acts as a way to “create a bigger divide.”

So if the nationwide number of transgender athletes is also estimated to be extremely low, then why was the order put in place?

This is something people have questioned while they debate over the true intent of this order.

Transgender athletes in and outside of McHenry face discrimination regularly for the misinformation about the advantages they are thought to have in sports, and this executive order only strengthens those ideas.

This executive order also poses more questions about where the line should be drawn between men and women’s sports.

Are cisgender women with common conditions like Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which produce higher levels of testosterone in the body, at an advantage in women’s sports? Or are the girls let onto male-dominated varsity football teams put at a disadvantage? And how do co-ed sports factor into this?

Gendered sports have a large gray area, and this is impacting transgender athlete’s ability to participate in sports. Because they are different from other athletes, and are being told that they shouldn’t be allowed to compete in their identifying sport, transgender athletes are being pushed out of sports.

“We exist,” said Riley, “we’re actual people. And it’s just frustrating to see everyone like me get disregarded, as if we’re nonexistent … we just want to live our day-to-day life as you do. I live my life as a man, and I don’t get why that’s such a problem.”

The athlete has waited impatiently for weeks to see if she will be cleared to compete on the girls soccer team. She imagines all the scenarios of getting a disappointing email, seeing that she has not been cleared since she hasn’t been on hormones or puberty blockers for long enough. In this case, she would then be forced to make the devastating decision to quit the sport she has loved for years since she still isn’t comfortable going back to the boys team. Will this be her reality?

*Editor’s note: Names have been changed to protect the students interviewed for this story