NCAA Changes Transgender Athlete Policy, Bars Men From Women’s Sports

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) changed its transgender athlete policy on Feb. 6, restricting participation in women’s sports to only athletes who were documented as female at birth. The change follows President Donald Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” The order intends to prevent transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports by defining women according to sex instead of identity. According to the Trump administration’s interpretation, this is consistent with Title IX rules, which were established in 1972 to bar sex-based discrimination in education. NCAA’s new policy is effective immediately and affects all athletes, even those under previous eligibility reviews. The nation’s largest governing body of college athletics, the NCAA oversees roughly 1,100 member schools and more than 500,000 athletes....