The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) decided Monday that transgender women—or female gender–identifying individuals who were assigned male sex at birth—may not compete in its collegiate women’s sports going forward, CBS Sports reports.
The NAIA’s governing body oversees 249 small, mostly private colleges and their approximately 83,000 student athletes. It appears to be the first among collegiate athletic associations to implement such a rule.
“We know there are a lot of different opinions out there,” NAIA president Jim Carr told CBS Sports. “For us, 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 created. You’re allowed to have separate but equal opportunities for women to compete.”
In addition to banning trans women from competing on a team that matches their gender identity, the new policy also blocks trans men—or individuals who have begun “masculinizing hormone therapy”—from continuing to play on a women’s team. Male sports will remain open to any student athlete.
This took far too long. The rest of the sports world needs to get it together.
Yup !!! It would seem to easy for those that can’t understand. If you were born with XX chromosomes, you are a female. If you were born with XY chromosomes, you are a male. Leaving gender types out ( there’s something like 11-13 gender types now ) an XY can not compete in an XX sport, no matter what you want to identify as. A male getting female hormone shots does not make you a female. You still have XY chromosomes that CAN’T be changed.