The National Collegiate Athletic Association is defending the participation of transgender athletes as public debate rages over whether their play against nontransgender athletes amounts to fair competition.
In a statement on Monday, the NCAA insisted that it “unequivocally supports” transgender people’s participation in college sports and defended its own strategy for accommodating the physiological differences of transgender athletes.
“The NCAA Board of Governors firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports,” the statement said. “This commitment is grounded in our values of inclusion and fair competition.”
The 25-member board’s “Statement on Transgender Participation” follows its Friday meeting, during which members were scheduled to discuss “state legislative activity related to transgender student-athlete participation in athletics,” according to a meeting agenda.
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Several states have moved to restrict the participation of transgender athletes. In March, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem signed orders mandating that only female athletes “based on their biological sex, as reflected on their birth certificate” can compete in women’s sports sanctioned by higher education institutions, public schools, or school districts.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill restricting the participation of transgender girls in sports. Similar pieces of legislation have been approved in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Idaho.
Its Monday statement pointed to NCAA’s own policy, adopted in 2010, to address the argument most commonly employed by those opposing transgender participation, namely that biological men have advantages in strength and agility over biological women.
“Our approach — which requires testosterone suppression treatment for transgender women to compete in women’s sports — embraces the evolving science on this issue and is anchored in participation policies of both the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee,” the statement said. “Inclusion and fairness can coexist for all student-athletes, including transgender athletes, at all levels of sport.”
The NCAA continued, “Our clear expectation as the Association’s top governing body is that all student-athletes will be treated with dignity and respect. We are committed to ensuring that NCAA championships are open for all who earn the right to compete in them.”
The NCAA also addressed how it determines which states get to host big games, an especially timely subject considering the MLB’s recent decision to pull its All-Star Game from Atlanta over Georgia’s new voting law.
“When determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected,” the statement said. “We will continue to closely monitor these situations to determine whether NCAA championships can be conducted in ways that are welcoming and respectful of all participants.”
In 2016, the NCAA removed a number of games from North Carolina after the state passed a bill mandating that those using public bathrooms and showers do so in correspondence with the gender on their birth certificate. That move was reversed a year later after the state repealed the “bathroom bill.”
The board was also scheduled to discuss state legislative activity on voting laws at its Friday meeting, and Monday’s statement on transgender athletes was succeeded by a statement on voting rights.
“While voting integrity is essential to the election process, an equal and fair opportunity for all Americans to vote cannot be diminished in any way, and we wholeheartedly support efforts to assist all in exercising this fundamental right,” the statement said in part.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to the NCAA for more information about the Friday meeting but did not immediately receive a response.
