The NCAA introduced Thursday it will now not enable transgender athletes to compete in girls’s sports activities and would restrict participation to these assigned feminine at start.
The coverage change, accredited by the NCAA board of governors, comes at some point after President Trump signed an govt order barring transgender athletes from competing in women’ and girls’s sports activities.
“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, former Republican governor of Massachusetts, mentioned in an announcement Thursday.
“To that finish, President Trump’s order supplies a transparent, nationwide commonplace,” he added.
The NCAA coverage change is efficient instantly and applies universally in girls’s sports activities, no matter eligibility underneath the earlier coverage. Transgender athletes are nonetheless eligible to take part within the males’s class, underneath the up to date coverage.
Beforehand, the NCAA coverage mentioned transgender participation in every sport trusted pointers set by the game’s nationwide or worldwide governing physique.
Transgender inclusion in girls’s sports activities has change into a political lightning rod, dividing the nation and taking part in an more and more central function in political campaigns. Trump’s govt order this week fulfilled a long-standing marketing campaign promise that rallied a lot of his base forward of the election.
Baker informed a Senate panel that there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes he’s conscious of who presently compete in school sports activities, accounting for lower than 0.002 p.c of NCAA athletes nationwide.
The NCAA consists of 1,100 faculties and universities, accounting for greater than 530,000 student-athletes, Baker mentioned.
Not less than one NCAA official resigned following the announcement Thursday. Jack Turban mentioned on social media that he was resigning from the NCAA Committee on Aggressive Safeguards and Medical Elements of Sports activities.
“Unfortunately, your recent decision to issue a blanket ban on trans female participation in women’s sports does not align with [medical] or scientific consensus,” Turban wrote in a letter to Baker. “I cannot in good conscience participate in this kind of politicization of science and medicine at the expense of some of our most vulnerable student-athletes.”
Turban informed The Hill that he and different committee members weren’t given advance discover of the board’s vote earlier than the general public announcement.
Trump praised the NCAA’s resolution in a Thursday submit on X, writing, “Exciting news! Due to my Executive Order, which I signed yesterday, the NCAA has officially changed their policy of allowing men in Women’s Sports – IT IS NOW BANNED. This is a great day for women and girls across the country.”
He added, “Men should have NEVER been allowed to compete against women in the first place, but I am proud to be the President to SAVE Women’s Sports. We expect the Olympics Committee to also use Common Sense, and implement this policy, which is very popular among the American People, and the entire World!”
Brooke Migdon contributed.
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