A group of 17 House Republicans are calling for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to ban transgender athletes who were born male from women’s sports.
The effort to call for a nationwide ban on trans “women” in college sports was led by New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney, who said that athletes born male have “natural advantages” over women, Fox News reported.
“We are deeply concerned about the future of women’s sports and upholding the critical Title IX protections for women’s sports with the NCAA’s current policies,” the letter signed by Tenney and sixteen other lawmakers says.
Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., participates in the House Republicans news conference following the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images).
“This policy appropriately recognizes the natural advantages that biological men have in certain athletic competitions. A 2022 study entitled ‘Transwoman Elite Athletes: Their Extra Percentage Relative to Female Physiology’ concluded that ‘many anatomical sex differences driven by testosterone are not reversible,” the letter reads.
“Further, this study found that given that ‘estrogen therapy will not reverse most athletic performance parameters, it follows that transgender women will enter the female division with an inherent advantage because of their prior male physiology.’ The NCAA’s current transgender policy fails to take these scientific facts into consideration,” it continued.
The letter also brought up the comments by University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, who said she would welcome men onto the women’s basketball team at USC.
“This statement ignores the biological facts and would harm female athletes throughout NCAA-affiliated schools,” the lawmakers added. “It is simply unfair for biological males to be allowed to compete against biological females. On top of that, allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports erodes critical Title IX protections for women.”
“As such, we urge the NCAA to reconsider its current policy that allows biological males to deprive women of a fair opportunity to compete and achieve athletic success. All women in NCAA-affiliated schools should not fear having their athletic accomplishments minimized by biological males,” the letter says.
The letter also cites the championships won by Lia Thomas, a transgender “woman” who took several titles away from females during the NCAA swimming championships in 2022. The letter then notes that the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) recently enacted a ban of its own on transgender women playing in women’s sports.
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas on the deck at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 17th, 2022, at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“This cannot be allowed to ever happen again. The NCAA must follow the NAIA’s lead and prohibit biological males from competing in women’s sports,” they concluded.
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