Dear Commons Community,

College athletes who were male at birth may practice but no longer compete on women’s sports teams at colleges governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the organization announced yesterday.

The new rules were approved one day after President Trump signed an executive order pushing the Department of Education to rescind funding from educational programs that allow transgender women to compete in women’s sports. As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Athletes who were female at birth but began testosterone therapy are also not eligible to compete. For men’s teams, athletes can practice and compete regardless of their gender identity.

Before yesterday, the NCAA took a sport-by-sport approach, deferring to sport-specific governing bodies, but the reality was complicated by differing state laws and pending court battles around the gender-equity law known as Title IX. In a statement Wednesday, the NCAA’s president, Charlie Baker, said that President Trump’s order “provides a clear, national standard.”

The statement also said the association would continue to “help foster welcoming environments on campuses for all student-athletes” and “assist schools as they look for ways to support any student-athletes affected by changes in the policy.”

Baker said at a congressional hearing late last year that fewer than 10 out of more than 500,000 athletes on NCAA teams were transgender. And yet some of those few instances have attracted controversy.

Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who competed for the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swimming team, became a face of the debate when she took first place in an event at the 2022 NCAA Women’s Division I Swimming and Diving Championships.

Then, last year, several opposing teams scheduled to play the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team opted to forfeit instead, in apparent protest of the presence of a transgender player on San Jose State’s roster. A group sued the university over allowing the athlete to play, but a judge declined to forbid her from participating in the conference tournament.

The Department of Education announced yesterday that it is now investigating the two colleges “for suspected Title IX violations.”

The new policy settles, for now, a question that has aroused furious debate at NCAA institutions. But they’re waiting on other pressing questions that will likely take longer to answer: for instance, whether the Education Department will co-sign guidance issued by the Biden Administration decreeing that future payments to athletes for their name, image, and likeness must comply with Title IX.

Baker has also asked Congress to pass legislation that would, among other things, protect the NCAA from legislation by granting it an antitrust exemption. The narrow Republican majorities there make such a bill far from a sure thing.

Tony

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