A photo from the White House, meant to mark the performance of a champion women's sports team, has sparked a series of negative reactions due to the positioning of President Donald Trump and a group of men in the frame, who overshadowed the athletes lining up in front of them, The Guardian wrote on Thursday.
The University of Georgia women's tennis team was one of several college teams to visit the White House on Tuesday to celebrate their recent NCAA championship win. In a photo shared by press adviser Margo Martin, Donald Trump and five Georgia staff members and coaches took the front row of the stage set up, with 11 women standing in the background on a platform.
The men sitting in the front row with Trump were: Georgia assistant athletic director Ford Williams, athletic director Josh Brooks, head coach Drake Bernstein, assistant head coach Jarryd Chaplin and secondary coach Will Reynolds.
Congratulations, Georgia Women's Tennis! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/v10nwRskuU
— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) April 21, 2026
“A photo is worth a thousand words…” reacted the former great tennis champion Martina Navratilova, in a message published on the X social network.
“Who approved this photo?” one commenter wrote. “When you definitely respect women's sports teams (and you get the idea): how about we put them behind us so they can barely be seen,” wrote another.
And in a video posted online by Margo Martin, Trump approaches the group and shakes the hands of the five men, but does not do the same to the women.
“Go Dawgs!” @POTUS congratulates the Georgia Women's Tennis Team on winning the 2025 National Championship! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/tnAXEGdh9r
— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) April 21, 2026
The Georgia team shared the photo on its official account later in the day, along with the following description: “Honored to represent the University of Georgia at the White House today! @realDonaldTrump, thanks for the invite!”
The Georgia team, which won the NCAA Division I women's tennis championship last May, was among seven teams honored at the White House this week for their titles.
Champion teams in all American sports have traditionally received invitations from the president to visit the White House after their victories. Such visits have become strained during Trump's first and second terms.
Prior to 2019, no women's championship team had made an individual visit to the White House under the Trump administration. Some attended events celebrating the men's and women's teams. Four of the teams honored at Tuesday's event were women's sports teams, plus a mixed rifle team.
Earlier this year, the United States women's hockey team declined an invitation to visit the White House after winning the gold medal at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. The team cited scheduling issues and prior commitments, but the decision was made after Trump joked that he had to invite the women's team during a phone call with the gold medal-winning United States men's team. Members of the men's team came to the White House and attended the State of the Nation address as guests of Trump.
Hilary Knight, the captain of the women's team, later called Trump's remark a “bad joke” that overshadowed the Olympic success.
“We're just focusing on celebrating the women on our team, the tremendous efforts, and continuing to celebrate the three gold medals in program history, as well as the double gold medal won by the men's and women's teams simultaneously. And we really don't want to distract from that with a bad joke,” Knight said in February.
The image from Tuesday's event has sparked comparisons to previous instances of men dominating photos at events focused on women's issues. In 2017, a photo of Trump signing an anti-abortion bill, surrounded by eight male staffers in the Oval Office, sparked outrage.
In recent weeks, Trump has been accused of running a “misogynistic administration” after the departure of three women from an already male-dominated cabinet. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and US Attorney General Pam Bondi were fired in the past two months; Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced her resignation on Monday.
Noem and Bondi were both replaced by men in a cabinet that was already the least diverse this century.
