West Cook News

Following the Illinois High School Association’s (IHSA) announcement that it will not comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning biological males from participating in female sports, GOP activist William Mueller has accused the organization of capitulating to “left-wing insanity” and endangering girls. 

Mueller, a vocal critic of gender identity policies in schools, rebuked the IHSA’s stance against Trump's February 5 executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”

“IHSA is weak and exhibits no principles,” Mueller told West Cook News. “Chromosomes will never change, boys retain a physical advantage in muscle and size no matter if they cut off their penis (black is white, white is black, 2+2 =7 or whatever as long as you feel good about yourself).” 

Trump's executive order cites Title IX and recent court rulings and directs federal agencies to ensure that women’s sports are reserved for biological females. It threatens to strip federal funding from institutions that fail to comply. 

The IHSA, however, stated in a letter signed by Dan Tully, IHSA Board President and Principal at Notre Dame College Prep in Niles, and Craig Anderson, IHSA Executive Director, that it is governed by the Illinois Human Rights Act, which permits biological males to compete based on gender identity, and emphasized that it receives no federal or state funding.

The IHSA’s decision came in response to a March letter from 40 Republican House members seeking clarification on whether it would comply with Trump’s executive order banning males from participating in female sports. 

Mueller rejected the IHSA’s rationale and said its policies put young female athletes at risk, noting that even the fact the topic is being discussed is an obvious sign of the “insanity of this culture.” 

“Absolutely they are ‘compromising’ girls…more than that, they endanger them,” he said. 

The controversy comes on the heels of Title IX investigations launched by the Department of Justice into the Illinois Department of Education, Chicago Public Schools District 299 and locally at Deerfield Public Schools District 109, where female students at Deerfield Middle School say they were forced to undress in front of a biological male in a girls' locker room.  

The IHSA has been subject to criticism from advocacy groups like Awake Illinois, which said the association is “sacrificing the rights of girls to appease gender ideology.”

The case of Abbigail Wheeler, a swimmer dismissed from her YMCA team in 2023 after objecting to share facilities with a biological male transgender athlete, has also resurfaced in public debate. Wheeler has since become a vocal advocate for sex-based sports categories.

IHSA Assistant Executive Director Matt Troha told Prairie State Wire that the organization has not altered its policy in response to the executive order and that no recent vote on the issue has occurred. 

The association’s 10-member board of directors, made up of school principals across Illinois, has declined requests for comment from West Cook News.