NCAA Bans Transgender Women From Women's Sports

Triathlon Forum
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Originally published at: NCAA Bans Transgender Women From Women’s Sports - Slowtwitch News

The NCAA today has limited participation in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth only. The change in policy takes effect today, and is applicable to all athletes, regardless of their prior status or whether their participation had been reviewed.

The announcement came following President Donald Trump’s executive order on transgender women’s participation in women’s sports. The order, which intended to ban transgender women from women’s sports, gave federal agencies the authority to withhold funding to programs and entities that did not comply with the order.

It also comes hours after the Trump administration had announced the investigation of two potential civil rights violations at two universities that allowed transgender women to participate in women’s sports.

“We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today’s student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said. “To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”

The NCAA policy covers more than 1100 member schools and over 500,000 student athletes. There are currently 42 NCAA women’s varsity triathlon programs. There were 202 finishers at the most recent NCAA National Championships race, held in Clermont, FL.

The prior policy, instituted in 2022, adopted a sport-by-sport approach with regard to transgender women’s participation. The rules of the national governing body would apply to transgender women’s inclusion. If there were no rule on a national level, the international governing body for that sport and its rules would apply. And in the instance of a lack of rules by the international governing body, then the International Olympic Committee’s criteria would apply.

The revised policy has additional major changes:

  • Athletes assigned male at birth (regardless of if they are transgender or not) are permitted to practice with women’s teams and receive medical care.
  • Any athlete, assuming they otherwise meet NCAA eligibility criteria, may practice and participate on a men’s team.
  • A transgender man may practice with the women’s team; however, if they have begun hormone therapy, they are prohibited from participating on the team without otherwise jeopardizing the team’s eligibility for championships.

“The updated policy…follows through on the NCAA’s constitutional commitment to deliver intercollegiate athletics competition and to protect, support and enhance the mental and physical health of student-athletes,” Baker said. “This national standard brings much needed clarity as we modernize college sports for today’s student-athletes.”

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The quotes from Baker are interesting in that they basically just praise the EO for forcing their hand to be consistent across the board.

I suppose he’s happy that the decision was basically removed from his hands, but it’s interesting in what it says and what it doesn’t. No remarks about victory for fairness or loss for inclusion advocates, just a strong praise of consistency.

If I understand the caveats correctly, m-to-f can practice but not compete with women’s team. Locker rooms seems an oft complaint, I wonder how that’s handled.

And f-to-m can practice but not compete with women’s team if they are on hormones (same locker wondering) or they can do both if on the mens team. Out of curiosity is there rule against f-to-m taking testosterone and competing with men?

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I don’t think this is a bad move overall. I do worry about the pendulum swinging too far in either direction, but seriously, there needs to be some realistic discussion of the advantages biology and hormones play at that level.

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Isn’t that pretty much what has taken place? Seems that relatively few people support allowing transgender women to compete with females and almost no one unless there has been hormone suppression.

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1.) Keep in mind Baker last year also said that, to the NCAA’s knowledge, there were fewer than 15 transgender athletes competing across the entirety of sports (all divisions plus club sports). So this wasn’t really an issue.

2.) So why comply? Likely because the NCAA is also looking to establish antitrust exemptions for NIL / ensure student-athletes aren’t considered employees at Congress, and they’re mostly working with Republicans on this issue. Basic political horse trading.

3.) Any non-born at female athlete may practice with the women’s team. Any trans male athlete may still compete with the women’s team so long as they are not on hormone therapy. Any trans male athlete may compete with the men’s team post-therapy so long as they are within applicable limits.

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If we go back and look when this movement was at it’s peak, that wasn’t the necessarily the case. A not small contingent of advocates were supporting the notion that simply declaring you identified as a woman would immediately grant you access to women’s sports and women’s personal spaces. Also there was an aggressive push for medical interventions for children under the age of 18, which is sheer madness. Now almost 80% of Americans, as per a CNN pole, are against transwomen participating in womens sports. Their perceived good intention simply went too far.

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I have no idea what the numbers used to be, I was responding to the comment that there needs to be a discussion about “the advantages biology and hormones play”. That seems to be exactly what has happened.

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Yeah I wasn’t challenging that, I agree. It was less of a plurality, like 60/40 about 2 years ago.

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My problem with this is that it’s not happening in a vacuum. I don’t know exactly where I stand, I support both arguments: the inclusion argument, and the fairness argument. I go back and forth between the two.

My problem is that it comes together with other EOs and government actions targeting this group of people:

  • Removing “T” from government websites.
  • Declaring that there are only two genders.
  • Not allowing trans women to use women restrooms at the capitol.
  • A few days ago a representative use the “T” slur in an official setting… multiple times.

This EO comes together with so many other actions targeting transgender people, and that worries me.

I get it that they decides it was best to not allow them to compete, but where’s the support in other areas?

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He’s praising the president because if he says out loud that he disagrees he’ll be dragged through the mud and could find himself out of a job and/or under federal investigation.

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I don’t think American’s are bigot’s. Yes, they exist, but in general most people have a live and let live attitude. People have come to accept others have different lifestyles. Progress in regards to recognizing same sex marriages for example. The same applies to the Trans community. If a man decides he identifies as a woman, that’s their prerogative. If I mistakenly misgender them and they politely correct me, I’m happy to refer to them in their preferred manner in an effort to be polite. Where this has gone sideways is in area’s like I mentioned above. What most people have seen of transwomen competing against biological women is absurd. They are the most extreme examples of unfairness. Also, as a parent of an 11 year old, the notion my son can make rational decisions about his gender is equally absurd, he can barely decide what to wear in the morning. Advocating for medical interventions for children at their request really turned otherwise uninterested people against this movement. I would also add circling back to being polite to trans peoples feelings, just because somone identifies as trans doesn’t mean I have to accept that as reality. Being kind, being polite, 100%. But the trans advocates demanded compliance and unquestioned acceptance that this man is now a woman, full stop, and any deviation from that thinking was anti-trans. So again, this alienated a large percentage of the live and let live population.

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So many words and nothing that addresses the concerns I mentioned.

Also: have missed the news of states trying to rollback Marriage Equality laws?

I don’t think you and I live in the same America.

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For me it’s the right outcome, wrong way for it to come about.

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As soon as an MtF was awarded an NCAA champioship it was an issue. It also was an issue at D3 T&F if I’m remembering correctly. The numbers don’t matter. One male taking a female’s place, space, position, award is one too many and Title IX was specifically created to protect women’s spaces and rights.

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As a 50 something year old working in academia I never encounter it. As someone who grew up in rural America, still have family and friends in that world, bigotry was a constant. It’s not like it was, but it’s still there, just rarely out in the open like it used to be, although sometimes it is still.

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I’m curious what would have been the correct way to come about this outcome. I ask because it seems there was going to be no way trans gender was going to be allowed in the women’s category if we are going at fair play for athletes aged 18-22 (that’s general age of NCAA athletes so if you start talking about transition periods etc, your then talking about forcing that on minors very likely to then be eligible at age 18), so by default it was then going to be an “inclusive” issue for the ones affected?

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For sure, I was making a generalized statement.

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Sam Harris just had a thing about this. The two biggest rights movements: Civil rights for black people in the 60’s and gay rights in the 90’s both proved successful by winning over opinion slowly in a grassroots fashion. The more people learned about and met black people or gay people the more they realized they’re acceptable (for lack of a better word, meaning worthy of acceptance) members of society. The trans rights movement has not done this. Many of their ideas are the opposite: they seem fine enough, but the more people learn about them the less they like them (sports, child hormone therapy).

They’ve largely tried to shortcut the hard work of societal acceptance with laws before societal acceptance.

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You’re right, trying to have a good faith, contextual review of how we have arrived at a place where these kind of policies are being put forward is a fools errand and not helpful in trying move forward with a different approach….

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Reminder that, in this forum, you can refer to trans women as trans women, or MtF athletes, but don’t call them men or male.

Thank you.

Edit to add: I thank all of you for the cordiality of your disagreement in the course of the discussion thus far. We appreciate it.

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