NCAA Bars Transgender Athletes, Following Trump’s Executive Order

Following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Thursday, the NCAA barred transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. The decision reverses a years-long policy in which the NCAA relied on smaller governing bodies to determine guidelines on a sport-by-sport basis.

“The war on women’s sports is over,” Trump said after signing the order Wednesday.

Trump’s initiative reshapes Title IX to include transgender participation in women’s sports as a form of sex-based discrimination, limiting the definition of gender to the one assigned to athletes at birth. Failing to follow the order threatened funding for athletic programs adhering to other Title IX provisions.

Transgender participation in sports was a hot topic for Trump and other Republicans during the election cycle last year.

Many current and former female athletes have joined a vocal group arguing that transgender women had competitive advantages and could be dangerous to other athletes. Many others have defended transgender athletes, arguing that the small population has become an easy target for political obfuscation, ridicule and discrimination.

The NCAA, which has previously expressed an interest in inclusion while mainly avoiding the transgender issue in an expansive capacity, quickly elected to adopt Trump’s changes Thursday. Their policy changes effectively bar transgender athletes from competing in any sport governed by the association.

“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 in a statement. “To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”

During a Senate panel last year, Baker said that less than 10 transgender athletes were competing in the NCAA. Among the most prominent is University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who generated considerable backlash when she began swimming against women.