NCAA changes transgender policy to limit women's competition to athletes assigned female at birth The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes on Thursday, limiting competition in women's sports to athletes assigned female at birth only.
The organization has more than 1,200 schools with more than 500,000 athletes, easily the largest governing body for college athletics in the U.S. “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.
The NCAA policy change is effective immediately and applies to all athletes regardless of previous eligibility reviews under the NCAA’s prior transgender participation policy.
The move came one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
The order gives federal agencies latitude to withhold federal funding from entities that do not abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration’s view, which interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.
