NAIA bans all transgender women from women’s sports

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics voted Monday to ban transgender women from women’s competitions starting next school year, spurring concerns among transgender-rights advocates that the NCAA may follow suit.

At the NAIA’s national convention, the Council of Presidents determined that beginning Aug. 1, “only students whose biological sex is female” may compete in women’s sports. That includes transgender men or nonbinary students who are not receiving masculinizing hormones.

“We are unwavering in our support of fair competition for our student-athletes,” NAIA President and CEO Jim Carr said in a news release. “It is crucial that NAIA member institutions, conferences, and student-athletes participate in an environment that is equitable and respectful. With input from our member institutions and the Transgender Task Force, the NAIA’s Council of Presidents has confirmed our path forward.”

With 241 member schools, most of them private with relatively low enrollments, the NAIA is overshadowed in size and influence by the NCAA, whose teams and events, including tonight’s men’s basketball title game, are among the most popular in American sports.

NCAA rules allow transgender athletes to compete if they adhere to the guidelines of their international sport governing bodies. Historically, the NCAA has generally advocated for inclusion but has resisted pressure to pull championship events from states that prohibit transgender athletes from competing in publicly funded school sports.

“I think that (the NAIA vote) provides a feeling that the NCAA would have the latitude to do the same,” said Anna Baeth, director of research for the queer sports advocacy group Athlete Ally. “I think that that feeling of latitude would be incredibly misguided.”

Trans-athlete rights have long been the subject of conservative attacks and scrutiny, including at the K-12, college and Olympic levels. Anti-transgender activists and legislators argue that restricting or banning transgender athletes from competition is a matter of protecting women’s sports under Title IX and keeping cisgender women safe. (The science surrounding any physical advantages transgender women may retain over cisgender women is unsettled, and research is ongoing.)

Since 2020, about half of U.S. states have enacted measures banning transgender girls and women – and sometimes boys and men – from publicly funded scholastic sports in the categories that align with their gender identities. (Some of those bans are being challenged in court.)

Meanwhile, many international sport governing bodies have been grappling with how to institute scientifically sound and equitable rules. World Aquatics and World Athletics are among the groups that have heavily restricted transgender girls’ and women’s eligibility, barring them from competition if they have experienced testosterone-driven puberty.

“I’m 110 percent disappointed,” said Mack Beggs, a transgender man and former NAIA wrestler for Life University in Marietta, Georgia. Competing in college, he said, “meant the world. It not only made me grow as an athlete – it made me grow as a person.”

The NAIA does not track whether any out trans athletes are currently among the approximately 83,000 participating in its sports, a spokesperson said. The organization’s 2023-24 policy allows trans and nonbinary athletes to compete in any gender category during the regular season.

For postseason events, trans athletes not receiving gender-affirming hormone treatment may compete in coed sports or in single-gender sports in the category associated with their assigned gender at birth. Transgender women who are receiving gender-affirming hormone treatment may compete in the women’s category in the postseason, provided they have already undergone one year of treatment. Transgender men taking medically prescribed, gender-affirming testosterone may not compete on women’s teams but may compete on men’s teams in the postseason.

Chris Mosier, a trans-rights activist and the first out transgender athlete to represent the United States in international competition, referenced recent anti-trans rhetoric as a potential influence on collegiate sports governing bodies’ policies.

“(The) NAIA and NCAA, along with many other sport organizations, teams, and leagues, have been under attack by anti-trans groups and individuals who have made it their life’s work to harm transgender people,” Mosier wrote in an email. “A policy change at this time, without a robust process of engaging experts, athletes, and people with lived experience, is solely based on political pressure.”

About 40 out trans athletes are thought to compete in NCAA sports, Baeth said. In March, 16 cisgender current and former female college athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA over its trans-athlete eligibility policy, demanding that the organization prohibit trans women from competing in women’s events and that it redistribute any recognition those athletes have received. The plaintiffs alleged the NCAA violated Title IX by allowing trans athletes such as University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas to compete. Thomas won the 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Division I championships.

The NCAA most recently updated its transgender eligibility policy in January 2022, in the run-up to the swimming championship meet.

The organization enacted a sport-by-sport approach that requires athletes to adhere to guidelines dictated by their specific sport’s international governing body. That change is still being phased in. The NCAA Board of Governors is next expected to meet April 25.

“College sports are the premier stage for women’s sports in America, and the NCAA will continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition for all student-athletes in all NCAA championships,” an NCAA spokesperson said.

During a Final Four news conference Saturday, a reporter from Outkick, a conservative sports website, asked South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley about her position on transgender athletes.

“I’m of the opinion that if you’re a woman, you should play,” Staley said. “If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa, you should be able to play.”