NCAA bans transgender athletes from women’s sports after Trump order

The NCAA has revised its policy regarding transgender athletes, prohibiting them from competing on women's teams effective immediately. This update comes a day after President Donald Trump enacted an executive order aimed at preventing transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.

The new policy restricts competition in women's sports to those athletes assigned female at birth. It allows athletes assigned male at birth to train with women's teams and access benefits such as medical care while practicing. The NCAA clarified that these new regulations apply to all athletes, including those who had previously undergone eligibility assessments under the former policy. NCAA President Charlie Baker stated, “The NCAA is comprised of 1,100 colleges and universities across all 50 states, collectively enrolling over 530,000 student-athletes. We believe that having clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards is essential for today’s student-athletes, rather than a confusing mix of differing state laws and court rulings. In this regard, President Trump’s order establishes a clear national standard.” Trump's executive order instructs the Department of Education to notify schools that permitting transgender athletes to compete in girls’ or women’s sports would violate Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. Schools that engage in sex-based discrimination risk losing federal funding. In reaction to this order, the Department of Education announced investigations into the University of Pennsylvania, San José State University, and a Massachusetts high school athletic association for alleged violations of Title IX. The investigations focus on Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association for allowing transgender students to participate on women’s swimming and girls’ high school basketball teams, respectively. Additionally, several opponents of the San José State women’s volleyball team forfeited matches this fall due to the presence of a transgender athlete on their roster. During a congressional hearing in December, Baker noted that there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes among the more than 500,000 student-athletes. The NCAA last updated its policy regarding transgender athlete eligibility in January 2022, partly in response to Lia Thomas, a former Pennsylvania athlete who became the first known transgender swimmer to win an NCAA Division I title. The 2022 changes aimed to align more closely with the standards set by national or international governing bodies for each sport. Under the previous policy, athletes were required to submit documentation of their testosterone levels at various points during their season. For most sports, transgender athletes needed to maintain a testosterone concentration below 10 nanomoles per liter to compete with women, though some sports had stricter limits (for example, in hockey, swimming and diving, and tennis, the threshold was less than 5 nanomoles per liter). The NCAA's recent decision follows a lawsuit filed by three of Thomas’s former teammates in Pennsylvania in federal court in Massachusetts. They allege that Harvard, Penn, the Ivy League, and the NCAA violated Title IX by allowing Thomas to compete in the 2022 Ivy League swimming championships. They are seeking damages and the annulment of Thomas’s swimming records. Their lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, is among several filed in the past year aimed at restricting transgender athletes from competing in women's sports.

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