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The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was formed in 1906 in order to, according to the history tab on their website, “regulate the rules of college sport and protect young athletes.” It’s been over a century since their founding, and they have not only managed to violate these objectives many times, but do so in nonsensical, downright disrespectful ways.
As I sit here, I can think of any number of issues that break these central tenants. I could think about the institutional racism that contributes to making the NCAA a predominantly white institution in terms of both staff (directors and coaches) and athletes. I could think about how women’s athletic programs weren’t approved until 1981, nearly a decade after Title IX was signed into law. I could think about how athletes on women’s teams are still disrespected with different competition rules, such as different running distances. When I first started writing for the Op-Ed section of this paper, I published a piece about the disparity between women and men in cross country, where men run 8k and women run 6k, despite distance events being the same for all genders in track. In my Sports section article interviewing Riley Winebrenner, Lawrence’s 3000m steeplechase school record holder, I wrote about how the NCAA refused to let women have the same water pit as the men until 2004. This is certainly not all—the inequities of the NCAA go far beyond my research. But what has captured the nation’s attention is a group that makes up 0.38% (yes, that is percent, meaning 0.38 out of 100) of the United States’ population and even less of the NCAA’s demographics: transgender people. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that sex will be defined as gender assigned at birth in all federal proceedings, and in all institutions that receive federal funding. He’s used that funding to essentially blackmail colleges and universities into doing what he wants by banning transgender athletes and removing anything that could be considered “DEI.” Many institutions are fighting back and waiting for its constitutionality to be challenged in court; the NCAA, however, caved immediately and announced a policy banning transgender women from competing on women’s teams.
Previously, the NCAA had followed a sport-by-sport approach, going by the guidelines determined by each sport’s national or international governing body as they are the experts and can determine fairness based on their sport’s specificity. Most follow the International Olympic Committee’s standards regarding trans women: they must undergo hormone therapy and reach testosterone levels below 10 nmol/L the year prior to and during the active competitive season. They also state that there should be “no presumption of advantage” between sexes and that restrictions on eligibility should be based on “robust and peer reviewed research.” This policy has not changed, but apparently the president knows better than the international governing body. The Olympics have had no issues with transgender athletes under these standards; there aren’t very many transgender athletes to begin with. The first trans woman to compete at the Olympics was Laurel Hubbard, who competed in weightlifting at Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics, and placed last in her category.
But what about all the stories you’ve heard? What about biological males stealing medals from hard-working women? One of the supporters of the executive order was Riley Gaines, an NCAA swimmer-turned-conservative speaker who rose to fame through claims of losing her title to a transgender woman. Except she didn’t actually win anything, and certainly didn’t lose out on any sort of title because of Lia Thomas (her competitor); Gaines and Thomas tied for fifth place in the 200-yard freestyle at the NCAA championship and were both awarded trophies. After that, Lia Thomas received massive amounts of hate while Riley Gaines amassed a reported net worth of $2 million campaigning to “protect women in sport” from men with a “biological advantage.”
According to California Women’s Law Center, 90% of universities do not meet Title IX standards of equity between genders in sports, as women receive a billion dollars less in scholarship money, and would need to be offered another 148,030 sport-related opportunities nationally to match the ratio of those offered to male athletes. And yet, those who would discriminate against trans women to “protect women” have no interest in solving these issues. During 2024’s March Madness, female basketball players received three times the amount of abusive social media messages when compared to their male counterparts. Where are the executive orders about that? Where are the ones stating that women should be paid equally and given equal opportunities in sport? That type of legislation is what is needed to protect women in sport, but, somehow, nothing has been passed in the Republican-majority Congress.
“Biological advantage” is every anti-trans bigot’s favorite phrase. Ignoring the sexist connotations of immediately dismissing women as weaker, biological advantage is quite literally the point of sport. Height is a biological advantage in running—it is advantageous to be taller for sprinting events and shorter for distance events. To that end, one factor (like sex) is not the sole determinant of an athlete’s performance. Everyone I’ve ever raced as a distance runner in the NCAA has been the same height (5’9”) or shorter than me, but I don’t complain that they should be banned. I’m immunocompromised and often face lung infections while training and competing, but I don’t demand that every athlete with a healthy immune system should be kicked out because they have an unfair biological advantage.
In every sense imaginable, the NCAA has failed at their core tenants of properly governing and protecting athletes. Instead of waiting for a ruling on whether the executive order is constitutional, they have happily allowed themselves to be pawns in a disgusting political game. They are sacrificing one of their most marginalized groups of student-athletes without hesitation to win the fleeting favor of the head of a lawless government. I, as the small blip that is a singular DIII Cross Country and Track runner, denounce their actions. I am no longer proud to call myself an NCAA athlete. Call upon your elected representatives, call upon your institution’s administration, call upon your family and friends to stand for true fairness in sport; to stand with transgender athletes against the NCAA’s discrimination.