NCAA Threatens to Pull Events From States With “Anti-Transgender” Laws
“The board’s statement was cheered by advocates for LGBTQ inclusion in college athletics”
At this point, maybe the schools that object should just let the association pull out and operate without them.
Inside Higher Ed reports:
A Warning and a Price Tag
Leaders of the National Collegiate Athletic Association are throwing their economic weight and influence behind transgender athletes ability to participate in college sports by threatening to pull lucrative championship events from states with discriminatory laws.
The NCAA Board of Governors released a statement Monday reiterating that it will select championship sites that are “safe, healthy and free of discrimination,” following the passage of four laws, and dozens more bills under consideration, that bar transgender women from competing against cisgender women in K-12 and intercollegiate sports. The board’s statement echoed a position and policy created nearly five years ago, when the association moved championship events from North Carolina after state lawmakers approved legislation that barred transgender people from using public bathrooms associated with the gender with which they identity.
“The NCAA Board of Governors firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports,” the statement said. “Our clear expectation as the association’s top governing body is that all student-athletes will be treated with dignity and respect. We are committed to ensuring that NCAA championships are open for all who earn the right to compete in them.”
The board warned that it “will continue to closely monitor these situations to determine whether NCAA championships can be conducted in ways that are welcoming and respectful of all participants.”
The board’s statement was cheered by advocates for LGBTQ inclusion in college athletics, who last month urged the association to take a definitive stance against policies in several states that attempt to restrict transgender people’s participation in sports.
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Comments
If you want to protect women you’re anti-transgender. Got it! The solution is simple. Let’s make “female” a recognized pseudo gender and anyone who objects is “anti-trans-female”
Problem solved in a way that could only make sense to the woke.
So? Pull!
Let them. I’m tired of this BS.
College sports seems to no longer be a part of my life. I didn’t even know that there was a basketball season until I saw the cover of a local paper where Oregon and Oregon State were in the sweet 16. How often does a UNC alum go the entire season without even knowing that they were playing basketball or that Roy Williams had retired? Yeah, definitely in the past for this guy.
Do transwomen get paid 72% of what biological men get paid? So if a woman wants to get paid more should she just declare she is a transmale?
And if said schools tell the NCAA to go away, they’re going to run athletics without them, what is the NCAA going to do?
What are the conferences doing along this line? Will the major ones, like Pac 12, SEC, and others do this too? If they do, I think that’s when we’ll see things fall apart. The prominent schools, like Georgia, Alabama, and others – along with their alumni – are big and rich enough to tell the NCAA to take a hike.
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There is hypocrisy in the NCAA. The US Olympic Committee, the National Governing Board (of various sports) and the NCAA have been debating the role of transgender-women in sports for a decade. We have evolved from asking athletes to take a physical exam with a physician to the current view which requires at least one year of hormone therapy. So, a man cannot on Monday announce a transition and then compete in an all-women NCAA event on Tuesday. (Same for the Olympics.)
There are two major problems here. First, K-12 sports do not have access to the medical expertise and chemical testing that the NCAA and the National Governing Bodies have. Hormone levels are a big issue in drug testing, because a lot of illegal performance enhancing drugs relate to hormones. Not only do K-12 lack the testing staff and expertise, but (no surprise) the hormone levels of kids vary a great deal. Each kid reaches puberty at a different age.
Second, the great thing about being a student is exploring and changing your mind. Kids do stupid things. One should be free to “test the waters” about being trans and then back out. If a male student enters a women’s track meet as a stunt, it would be wrong to hold a gun to his head and force him to lead the rest of his life as a woman. A senior in high school is confused about life as a whole without being forced to make life-long irrevocable decisions.
Given both of these, policy makers should be free to adopt a policy that uses biological sex to establish qualification to compete in K-12 sports. Some people may be excluded as a result — for example students born with serious birth defects or mobility impaired students — but trying to include everyone destroys the experience for particularly cis-women student athletes. The NCAA should recognize that if they are willing to adopt surveillance of athlete hormone levels, they cannot sit in judgment of governments who adopt a less-expensive approach for K-12.