An NCAA alternative known as the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has announced that trans women may not compete against biological women in all sports.
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, the governing body for mostly small colleges, announced a policy Monday that all but bans transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
The NAIA Council of Presidents approved the policy in a 20-0 vote. The NAIA, which oversees some 83,000 athletes at schools across the country, is believed to be the first college sports organization to take such a step.
According to the transgender participation policy, all athletes may participate in NAIA-sponsored male sports but only athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth is female and who have not begun hormone therapy will be allowed to participate in women’s sports.
The NAIA President emphasized the need to preserve fair competition was what motivated the group’s decision.
“We know there are a lot of different opinions out there,” NAIA President Jim Carr told CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd. “For us, we believed our first responsibility was to create fairness and competition in the NAIA.”
He said the NAIA also believes its new policy aligns with the reasons Title IX was created.
“You’re allowed to have separate but equal opportunities for women to compete,” Carr said.
Naturally, that message about protecting fair competition didn’t get across to various trans activists who are already condemning the Association.
Shiwali Patel, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, said her organization was outraged by the NAIA policy.
“This is unacceptable and blatant discrimination that not only harms trans, nonbinary and intersex individuals, but limits the potential of all athletes,” Patel said in a statement. “It’s important to recognize that these discriminatory policies don’t enhance fairness in competition. Instead, they send a message of exclusion and reinforce dangerous stereotypes that harm all women.”
That also includes the Human Rights Campaign:
“Today, the NAIA decided to bar an entire category of people from competition simply because of a right-wing outrage campaign that purposefully misrepresents and distorts the realities of transgender athletes while doing nothing to support women’s sports,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, in a statement. “The chilling message this sends not just to other sanctioning bodies but also to youth sports leagues across the country is dangerous and it must be stopped in its tracks.”
The real concern here, which you can almost read between the lines in the HRC statement, is that the NCAA could soon follow suit. NCAA critics are hoping that’s the case.
“I think that [the NAIA vote] provides a feeling that the NCAA would have the latitude to do the same,” said Anna Baeth, director of research for the queer sports advocacy group Athlete Ally. “That feeling of latitude would be incredibly misguided.”…
Marshi Smith, co-founder of the Independent Council of Women’s Sports, which has funded a lawsuit against the NCAA over its policy, called the decision “historic” and urged more groups to “follow the science to preserve the original intent of Title IX.”
“The NCAA needs to look to the NAIA now to do what is just and right,” she said.
As mentioned, the NCAA is being sued by a group of 16 women athletes, several of them swimmers who competed against Lia Thomas. But so far they don’t seem to be in a hurry to buckle.
Hours after the NAIA announcement, the NCAA released a statement: “College sports are the premier stage for women’s sports in America and the NCAA will continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition for all student-athletes in all NCAA championships.”
Are they ensuring fair competition for women? That’s the question the NCAA seems to be dodging here. Obviously the women who sued them don’t think so.
The NAIA becomes the first national college governing body to mandate athletes compete with their sex in a overwhelming 25-0 vote 👏🏼
“We believed our first responsibility was to create fairness and competition in the NAIA…We also think it aligns with the reasons Title IX was…
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) April 8, 2024
The Biden administration was planning to release a new Title IX rule which would have mandated the ability of trans women to compete in most cases but they decided to hold off on that in an election year.