Opinion: NCAA lacks reason, spine in ban of transgender women athletes

Posted by author February 6, 2025 Sports

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The NCAA has lost its common sense, along with its spine.

A day after President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning transgender women from playing sports, the NCAA threw the handful of them to the wolves. In doing so, however, NCAA president Charlie Baker and Co. inadvertently revealed what a farce this actually is.

While banning transgender women from competition, the NCAA’s edict late Thursday said they could still practice with women’s teams. Male practice players are still allowed, too. Which is funny, because the physical safety of cisgender women is one of the “reasons” the transphobes have used to justify their efforts to ban transgender women.

So, which is it? If transgender women pose a physical threat during games, wouldn’t they also during practice? And for sure wouldn’t male practice players? If transgender women are really just crafty men looking to groom and assault women, wouldn’t they still be able to do that? Couldn’t the male practice players do that, as well?

It’s circular logic. But malevolent circular logic that is only going to further demonize the “less than 10” transgender athletes there are in the NCAA.

Great job, Charlie. Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back for what you described as “clarity,” when it’s really cowardice, sacrificing already-vulnerable kids so the president and his minions won’t put you on their enemies list.

There was a time when the NCAA was fearless in standing up to bigotry. It refused to put championship events in South Carolina for almost 15 years because the state continued to embrace racism, flying a Confederate flag over the Statehouse. It yanked events out of North Carolina over a bill that forced transgender people to use bathrooms of the sex they were assigned at birth.

And when Indiana enacted a “religious freedom” bill that was just a cover to allow discrimination against gays and lesbians, NCAA then-president Mark Emmert’s forceful denunciation led to a walkback within days.

“The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committed to providing an inclusive environment for all our events,” Emmert said at the time. “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees.”

My, how times have changed. Now the NCAA’s only concern is covering its ass.

The transphobes want you to believe that there is an army of transgender women banging on the doors of every gym and playing field, at every level of sports. They want you to believe these athletes are superhuman, so much so that they’ll eventually crowd cisgender women out of sports. They want you to believe transgender women are a threat to your daughters’ bodies and virtue.

Rather than buying into the hysteria, take a step back. You parents of girls in youth sports, how many transgender kids do you know on your daughter’s team or in her league? Actually know, not just assume because someone has short hair or you’ve heard gossip. You college athletes, how many transgender athletes have you come across in your career?

The International Olympic Committee and NCAA had protocols allowing transgender participation for more than a decade. And, last time I checked, cisgender women are still competing. Still standing on podiums with medals around their necks. The hysteria is exactly that – hysteria.

And don’t get me started on the science. Or lack thereof. Asserting that transgender women have an advantage because cisgender men do is both inaccurate and lazy. To know how transgender women compare with cisgender women, you actually have to compare them, and there are very few studies that have. One that did showed it’s the transgender women who might be disadvantaged.

This fear, this meanness, this witch hunt has always been a solution in search of a problem. Transgender women are not a threat. They’re not ogres. They’re not overrunning sports now or ever.

These are girls and young women who want to compete and play with their friends, same as cisgender girls and young women, and the NCAA is telling them to go away. That they’re not welcome. That it believes all the awful things the transphobes have said about them.

“Schools (are) directed to foster welcoming environments on all campuses,” the NCAA’s headline said.

Oh, I’m sure that will make the “less than 10” — again, Baker’s own words — transgender athletes feel so much better now! The NCAA is offering transgender athletes the equivalent of thoughts and prayers after throwing them under the bus and encouraging the transphobes to double-down on their efforts to eradicate them completely from society.

Because that’s what this really is. The Trump administration is trying to ensure there is no safe space for transgender people outside their homes. Not in the military, not at work, not at their doctor’s offices and now, not on the playing fields.

Part of the power of sports is that they teach us life lessons. Sadly, the NCAA has made it so intolerance and ignorance are now among them.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.