Governor Braun signs executive orders to protect women’s sports and reinforce Indiana’s legal definition of sex

Governor Mike Braun today signed two executive orders to ensure fairness in women’s sports and reject extreme gender ideology in favor of the scientific reality of biological sex.

The executive order protecting opportunities for women in college sports comes ahead of International Women’s Day this Saturday and follows Governor Braun’s landmark executive order expanding paid parental and childbirth recovery leave for women signed Monday.

Executive Order 25-35: Protecting Opportunities in Post-Secondary Women’s Sports

This executive order mandates that Indiana’s state educational institutions must comply with the 2020 Title IX Rule rather than the 2024 Biden Administration reinterpretation that extended protections based on self-reported, ever-changing new idea of “gender identity.”

The order ensures that female athletes in college sports are not forced to compete against biological males, preserving the integrity of women’s athletics and protecting opportunities for women in female-only sports leagues.

"Women’s sports create opportunities for young women to earn scholarships and develop leadership skills. Hoosiers overwhelmingly don’t want those opportunities destroyed by allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports, and today’s executive order will make sure of that,” said Braun. 

Executive Order 25-36: Ensuring Indiana Law is Based on the Reality of Biological Sex Rather than Extreme New Gender Theories

Alongside protections for women’s sports, Governor Braun also signed an executive order making clear that Indiana will not go along with the extreme gender ideology that created the problem in women’s sports in the first place.

“Replacing the scientific fact of biological sex with the always-changing, self-reported idea of ‘gender identity’ has real consequences: it puts women in danger in female-only spaces like prisons, it destroys opportunities for women in sports, and it tells troubled kids that their mental health problems can be solved with sterilizing drugs and irreversible sex change operations. Indiana will not go along with this radical new idea of what gender means, and we will not allow tax dollars to be used to promote this ideology — instead, we’re going to focus on providing Freedom and Opportunity for all Hoosiers.” said Braun.