Athletes urge NCAA to pull championships from states with transgender athlete bans
Hundreds of student athletes sent a letter to the NCAA on Wednesday urging the organization to “stand against” limits on transgender athlete participation in some states.
The letter, signed by more than 500 college athletes, called on the NCAA to “uphold its nondiscrimination policy” and not hold championships in states that bar transgender athletes from playing with members of the same gender. It comes as lawmakers across the country have recently pursued legislation to exclude some transgender students from sports and require them to play with a team based on their sex assigned at birth.
“The harm these bills will cause will be felt by generations of athletes to come,” the letter says. “Trans youth will not be able to play and excel at the sports they love, causing a ripple effect that will eventually remove an integral element of the diversity of college sport. Failure to speak up now will harm current and future athletes – perhaps irreparably.”
The letter goes on to say that “all athletes are worthy of protection.”
“No athlete should feel unsafe being who they are. Please show us that your practices align with your priorities,” the letter reads.
The NCAA released a statement in January saying it would “closely monitor” bills that “impact transgender student-athlete participation” and referred to those comments when asked for a response by The Hill.
“The NCAA believes in fair and respectful student-athlete participation at all levels of sport,” the statement says. “The Association’s transgender student-athlete participation policy and other diversity policies are designed to facilitate and support inclusion. The NCAA believes diversity and inclusion improve the learning environment and it encourages its member colleges and universities to support the well-being of all student-athletes.”
In 2016, the NCAA pulled championship events from North Carolina after the state passed House Bill 2, a controversial law restricting bathrooms transgender people could use that was later repealed.
“The athletes are demanding that the NCAA stand by its policies and refuse to bid for or host events in states that pass discriminatory bans on trans girls and women participating in school sports,” a release about the letter says.
Recent legislation
On Thursday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, signed into law the “Mississippi Fairness Act,” which will require schools to designate sports teams based on one’s sex assigned at birth — preventing transgender students from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
It’s the first state to pass such a ban this year, ABC News reports.
But South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said this week she would sign a similar bill passed by the state legislature. Last year, Idaho passed a bill that prohibited transgender women and girls from playing on women’s and girl’s sports teams sponsored by public schools, The Associated Press reported. A judge temporarily blocked the ban.
Mississippi and South Dakota are two of the 25 states where bills “excluding transgender youth from athletics” have been introduced so far this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is tracking the bills.
Some of the bills have been introduced after President Joe Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office to ensure “federal anti-discrimination statutes that cover sex discrimination prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ persons.”
A recent Gallup poll found that an historically high number of Americans identify as LGBTQ — including 0.6% of all adults in the country who are transgender. The prevalence of transgender people increases among younger generations, with 1.2% of millennials and 1.8% of GenZ also identifying as transgender.
Pushback on the bills
Reeves recently tweeted that he was signing the bill in Mississippi to “protect young girls from being forced to compete with biological males for athletic opportunities” and Noem tweeted the bill in South Dakota is “defending women’s sports.”
“It sends a clear message to my daughters and all of Mississippi daughters that their rights are worth fighting for,” Reeves said while signing the legislation.
GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, said in a statement that transgender women and girls have been participating in women’s and girl’s sports for decades and there “is simply no evidence trans athletes destroy or disrupt women’s sports.”
“Trans athletes have been allowed in Olympic competition since 2003, yet no trans athlete has ever made it to the Olympics — busting the myth of the alleged ‘biological advantage’ held by trans women over cisgender women,” GLAAD says. “Transgender athletes have been able to compete on NCAA college teams consistent with their gender identity for the past nine years, with no disruption to women’s collegiate sports.”
The organization also said the “anti-trans legislation” proposed this year doesn’t “address the real problems facing school sports for girls,” such as a “lack of funding and opportunities.”
“Allowing trans girls to join their friends in school sports doesn’t take away from anyone,” GLAAD says. “The benefits of athletics — camaraderie, physical and mental health, problem solving — are structural learning experiences that we carry with us into adulthood.”
The Human Rights Campaign called the legislation popping up across the country a “coordinated attack on trans kids.”
“Every kid deserves to play sports consistent with their gender identity,” the group wrote.
The letter to the NCAA said it’s “impossible for women athletes to feel safe and supported in environments where their personal identity and integrity is questioned.”
“The reality is that these many of these bills cannot possibly be enforced without inviting policing and bullying of all student athletes who do not meet stereotypes of gender, and could empower any person to force any student athlete to undergo invasive physical exams or hormone tests in order to ‘prove’ their gender,” the letter says.
This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 4:14 PM.
