Cj Johnson didn’t want to quit field hockey, a sport they played for 12 years.
“It feels like we’re being erased.
Johnson is referring to the NCAA’s decision in mid-May to schedule softball championship regional and superregional games for later that month in Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee, which had all recently passed laws barring trans athletes’ participation in sports.
So far, NCAA leadership has adopted a hands-off approach to the new laws, some of which stand to conflict with the organization’s own rules on trans participation.
That approach differs from the one the NCAA took five years ago, when conservative lawmakers led another legislative campaign against trans rights.
“They’re in such a prime location to show like, ‘This is what accountability looks like.
Last year, Idaho passed the first in the series of bills nationwide that ban trans girls and women from playing women’s sports in K–12 schools and public colleges and universities.
In four of the states that have followed Idaho—Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and West Virginia—the laws also apply to public colleges and universities, in addition to public K–12 schools.
In March, a group of nearly 550 collegiate athletes, including students from Duke, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Villanova and Maryland, signed a letter to NCAA president Mark Emmert and the Board of Governors protesting the scheduling of events in states that have passed—or were considering passing—anti-trans sports bans.
In an April 12 statement on the issue, which the NCAA referred Sports Illustrated to when reached for comment, the organization wrote that its Board of Governors “firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports.” It continued by mentioning its trans inclusion policy and laid out: “Our clear expectation as the Association’s top governing body is that all student-athletes will be treated with dignity and respect.” The statement closes with a reminder that the NCAA will schedule championships in only locations that can provide an environment that’s “safe, healthy and free of discrimination.” A close reading of the NCAA’s statement suggests that, with most of the bans not yet in effect, it views these states as “safe” and “healthy” for all athletes.
“It does not feel like done a whole lot,” says runner Aliya Schenck, a rising senior at Washington University in St.
In response to the softball announcement, 50 trans and nonbinary current and former college athletes, aided by Athlete Ally, wrote a letter in May to the NCAA protesting its scheduling of the softball events in affected states and pressuring it to take action to keep trans athletes safe.
Since 2001, it’s declined to schedule championship events at schools that use offensive Native imagery or in states where governments fly the Confederate flag.
Many of these states rely on NCAA events to draw money and tourism and sports betting to their states, to their cities.” He adds, though, that since most of the bans have not taken effect yet, he believes there’s still time for the NCAA to adjust its stance.
But will it? The experts who spoke to SI aren’t sure.
Moreover, North Carolina was already facing widespread condemnation: Everyone from Bruce Springsteen to the NBA had already pulled events from the state by the time the NCAA made its move, six months after the bill went into effect.
In addition to the NCAA’s track record for moving cautiously, the difference in political climate between 2016 and ’21 can’t be overlooked, says Ashland Johnson, founder of The Inclusion Playbook, a sports consultancy that works with teams and leagues, including the NCAA, on diversity issues.
The science around trans athletes is slim and unsettled—it has not been proved that trans girls and women, who at higher levels of competition are required to go through hormone therapy, retain any advantage over their cisgender peers.
Johnson, of The Inclusion Playbook, says that if the NCAA were following its own anti-discrimination policy, it would be an easy decision.
Natalie Fahey, who signed the May letter, almost stopped swimming when she transitioned during her collegiate career at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, but she kept at it, she says, because swimming has saved her life during rough patches.
Jordan Keesler almost called it quits as well, coming close to nearly turning in their softball jersey several times over their three-year college career at Agnes Scott College.
“I wouldn’t have felt comfortable going or felt safe ,” they say.
“I’ve been to a few conferences that the NCAA has hosted, and it’s primarily coaches and public officials,” they say.
Meanwhile, as the fight continues in Idaho over its law’s constitutionality, the ACLU has also sued West Virginia over its sports ban—which the Justice Department has called unconstitutional—while threatening to sue other states, as well.
“They’re going to really have to think about the excuse they use,” Lieberman says.