On April 22, 2026, the University of Georgia women's tennis team — winners of the 2025 NCAA Division I championship — visited the White House. White House press aide Margo Martin posted a celebratory photo: Donald Trump and five Georgia athletic-staff men in the front row, the eleven women athletes lined up on a riser behind them. In a video Martin also posted, Trump approaches the group, shakes the hands of all five male staffers, and does not shake the hands of the women.
Martina Navratilova on X: “A photo is worth a thousand words …” The image quickly went viral; one widely-shared comment read: “Me when I definitely respect women's sports teams: what if we put them behind us so you can barely see them.” The Georgia team posted the same photo to its official account thanking Trump for hosting them.
The symbolism would matter less if it weren't part of a broader pattern. The same week, three women departed Trump's cabinet — already the least-diverse cabinet of this century according to The Guardian's correction note. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi were both fired in the prior two months. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced her resignation on April 20, 2026. Noem and Bondi have already been replaced — both by men. The departures leave Trump's cabinet with even fewer women than when his second term began.
The tennis team photo also drew direct comparisons to a 2017 incident in which Trump signed an anti-abortion executive order surrounded by eight male staffers in the Oval Office. Earlier this year, the U.S. women's hockey team — fresh off Olympic gold at Milan-Cortina — declined a White House invitation, citing scheduling. The decision came after Trump joked, on a phone call with the gold-medalist men's team, about needing to invite the women's team. Captain Hilary Knight called it a “distasteful joke” that overshadowed the women's three gold medals.
Four of seven championship teams honored at the White House this week were women's teams, plus a mixed-gender rifle team. Before 2019, no women's championship team had made a solo visit to the White House under Trump.