If you couldn’t imagine the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and transgender athlete controversy crossing paths, think again. On Monday, DHS announced that foreign, biologically male athletes wanting to enter the U.S. to compete as women will be refused a visa.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), this is in conjunction with the executive order President Donald Trump signed in February, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” It’s also meant to “guarantee an even playing field” for female athletes. As agency spokesperson Matthew Tragesser explained, “Men do not belong in women’s sports. It’s a matter of safety, fairness, respect, and truth that only female athletes receive a visa to come to the U.S. to participate in women’s sports.”

The new policy would affect the O-1A, E11, and E21 visas, which serve to “welcome foreigners who have exceptional or extraordinary ability in an area,” The Washington Times reported, as well as “foreigners seeking national interest waivers to skip over job certification requirements.” The agency was clear: men seeking to compete in a women’s division simply shouldn’t qualify for a visa or national interest waiver. As Tragesser underscored, “USCIS is closing the loophole for foreign male athletes whose only chance at winning elite sports is to change their gender identity and leverage their biological advantages against women.”

Rosemary Jenks, policy director at the Immigration Accountability Project, explained, “The president has an executive order on this,” she stated. “It should not be surprising to anyone that USCIS would announce that policy,” particularly given that a majority “of the American people agree with it.” In fact, Trump’s February order specifically states that “the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall review and adjust, as needed, policies permitting admission to the United States of males seeking to participate in women’s sports, and shall issue guidance with an objective of preventing such entry to the extent permitted by law.”

This announcement is part of a broader movement to protect women’s and girls’ sports. The Trump administration has initiated and resolved several investigations into alleged Title IX violations at schools nationwide. Beyond the White House, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee had aligned its policies with Trump’s executive order last month. At the global level, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) also emerged singing a different tune on the trans-athlete controversy chorus.

The new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, announced in June an “overwhelming” and “unanimous” support for protecting the female category among IOC members. The plan involves policy reform within the IOC to help reflect this broader commitment. As Coventry put it, “We understand that there’ll be differences depending on the sport … but it was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost to ensure fairness.”

Concerning USCIS’s updated policy, the agency reaffirmed its stance: “USCIS will affirmatively protect all-female athletic opportunities by granting certain athlete-related petitions and applications, that had previously been abused and offered to men, only to women, ensuring that male aliens seeking immigration benefits aren’t coming to the U.S. to participate in women’s sports.”

Mary Szoch, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity and a former NCAA Division I athlete, celebrated the move as a step in the right direction. However, as she also explained to The Washington Stand, “While policies over who receives visas may be divisive, everyone should be able to agree that a man masquerading as a woman and consequently dominating women’s sports should not receive a visa that denotes ‘exceptional or extraordinary ability.’”

She continued, “The truth is, these men are often average male athletes whose biological advantages allow them to succeed in women’s sports. The only thing ‘extraordinary’ about them is their inability to understand that women’s safety and the integrity of sports should not be put at risk simply because they are experiencing gender dysphoria and want to play women’s sports.”

While more work remains to fully safeguard female athletics, Szoch concluded, “Thank goodness for the election of President Trump and the return of common sense to the White House!”