The NCAA has revised its policy on participation for transgender athletes.
One day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aiming to ban trans athletes from women’s sports, the NCAA changed its policy to limit competition in women’s sports to female-born athletes.
The policy is effective immediately and applies to all athletes, even those who had competed, or had their eligibility reviewed, under the prior policy.
“The NCAA is an organization made up of 1,100 colleges and universities in all 50 states that collectively enroll more than 530,000 student-athletes,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a prepared statement. “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. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”
Baker also said during a congressional hearing in December that there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes out of the more than 500,000 competing in the NCAA across all three divisions.
The NCAA policy permits athletes “assigned male at birth to practice with women’s teams and receive benefits such as medical care while practicing,” but not competing in NCAA women’s events.
On Wednesday, Trump made an executive order that directs the Department of Education to inform schools they will be violating Title IX if they allow transgender athletes to compete in girls or women’s sports, which could affect the schools’ federal funding.
Title IX is the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools.
The Department of Education has since announced investigations into the University of Pennsylvania, where swimmer Lia Thomas became an NCAA women’s champion after transitioning, following multiple years swimming for Penn’s men’s team. Thomas is the first known transgender swimmer to win an NCAA title.
Under the previous NCAA policy, athletes were required to provide documentation of testosterone levels, which needed to be less than 10 nanomoles per liter to compete with women.
Three of Thomas’ former teammates at Penn have filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts that claims Penn, Harvard, the Ivy League and the NCAA violated Title IX by allowing Thomas to compete and seeks the vacating of Thomas’ swimming records, according to reports.
Investigations have also begun at San Jose State University and the Massachusetts high school athletic association, according to the Department of Education.
