USA Rugby has become the first sports organisation to create a brand new category that would permit any athlete, regardless of gender assigned at birth and gender identity, to compete in a sanctioned event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an official statement issued by the organisation, they would now have three competition categories – Men\u2019s Division, Women\u2019s Division and Open Division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This move by USA Rugby come in the wake of the Executive Order 14201, labeled \u201c<\/strong><\/em>Keeping Men Out of Women\u2019s Sports,<\/strong><\/em> which Donald Trump signed in 2025. The order directed federal agencies to enforce Title IX by restricting transgender women from participating in women\u2019s sports teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In line with this, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committees (USPOC) had required USA Rugby to adopt the following regulation from the NGB Athlete Safety Policy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “[National Governing Bodies] are committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport. [National Governing Bodies] will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities, e.g., [International Olympic Committee], [International Paralympic Committee], international federations, to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201 and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act, 36 U.S.C. \u00a7 22501, et. Seq.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Failure to do would have resulted in sanctions from the USOPC, including the potential loss of governing body status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n USA Rugby\u2019s tactical response to this directive is likely to put in under scrutiny and most definitely to a public outcry by Trump himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhile USA Rugby meets the requirements set forth by the Administration and the USOPC, we recognize this change has a meaningful impact on members of our community and may conflict with values of our game. We understand that some athletes, teams, and clubs will be directly affected. Prior to adopting this policy, USA Rugby made every effort to explore all available options, so this was not actioned without thorough consideration\u2019 said the statement from US Rugby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More importantly, it said that that policy has been reviewed and approved by the USOPC and determined to be aligned with the Executive Order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe take great care in serving and supporting our members. To those athletes impacted by the policy change, we understand the physical and mental stress this may cause. Going forward, we hope to continue strengthening the values of an inclusive USA Rugby community,\u201d said the US Rugby statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" USA Rugby has become the first sports organisation to create a brand new category that would permit any<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[360,72],"class_list":["post-10049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-lgbtq","tag-rugby"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender.jpg",2002,1135,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender-300x170.jpg",300,170,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender-768x435.jpg",640,363,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender-1024x581.jpg",640,363,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender-1536x871.jpg",1536,871,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender.jpg",2002,1135,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/rugby-gender.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10051,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10049\/revisions\/10051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}