Georgia college leaders ask NCAA to ban transgender girls from sports activities

The regents who govern Georgia’s 26 public universities and schools voted on Tuesday to ask the NCAA and one other school athletic federation to ban transgender girls from taking part in girls’s sports activities.

The unanimous vote got here after Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican, vowed in August to move laws that may ban transgender girls from athletic occasions at public schools.

The regents requested the NCAA and the Nationwide Junior School Athletic Affiliation to evolve their insurance policies with these of the Nationwide Affiliation of Intercollegiate Athletics. 

That federation voted in April to all however ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’s sports activities at its 241 largely small schools.

Of the 25 faculties ruled by the regents which have sports activities applications, 4 are members of the Nationwide Junior School Athletic Affiliation, 5 are members of the NAIA, and the remaining 16 are NCAA members. 

The College of Georgia and Georgia Tech are NCAA members.

All athletes are allowed to take part in NAIA-sponsored male sports activities.

However the one athletes allowed to take part in girls’s sports activities are these whose organic intercourse assigned at delivery is feminine and haven’t begun hormone remedy.

The a lot bigger NCAA started in August to observe the requirements of nationwide and worldwide governing our bodies for every sport.

Earlier than that, the NCAA coverage for transgender athlete participation in place since 2010, referred to as for one 12 months of testosterone suppression therapy and documented testosterone ranges submitted earlier than championship competitions.

Board of Regents Secretary Chris McGraw stated that the junior school federation permits some transgender college students to take part in girls’s athletics in some circumstances.

Of the 25 faculties ruled by the board which have intercollegiate sports activities applications, 5 are NAIA members, 4 are members of the junior school federation and 16 are members of assorted NCAA divisions.

“These are three very totally different units of guidelines that our establishments’ athletic applications are ruled by at this level,” stated McGraw, additionally the board’s chief lawyer, who briefly introduced the decision earlier than it was accepted with no debate.

Kristina Torres, a spokesperson, stated board members and Chancellor Sonny Perdue had no additional remark.

Perdue is a former Republican governor whereas board members have been appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.

The NCAA didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail searching for touch upon Tuesday.

Opponents say these searching for bans on transgender participation in girls’s and women’ sports activities are searching for political achieve.

Jeff Graham, the manager director of LGBTQ+ rights group Georgia Equality, stated the college system “ought to acknowledge the significance of variety at many ranges and must be there to care concerning the instructional expertise of all of their college students no matter their gender or gender identification.”

“I’m definitely disillusioned to see the Board of Regents of the College System of Georgia is spending its time passing resolutions that solely serve to stigmatize transgender college students and perpetuate misinformation concerning the actuality of what’s taking place inside athletic competitions involving transgender athletes,” Graham informed The Related Press in a telephone interview.

Jones, a doable Republican contender for governor in 2026, thanked the regents for his or her vote in a Tuesday assertion.

Senate Republicans showcased the problem in August once they heard from 5 former school swimmers who’re suing the NCAA and Georgia Tech over a transgender lady’s participation within the 2022 NCAA girls’s swimming championships on the Atlanta college.

“The work feminine athletes put into competing must be protected in any respect price, irrespective of the age,” Jones stated.

“This motion brings us one step nearer towards reaching that final purpose.”

Transgender participation in girls’s sports activities roiled Georgia’s Normal Meeting in 2022, when lawmakers handed a regulation letting the Georgia Excessive Faculty Affiliation regulate transgender girls’s participation in sports activities.

The affiliation, largely made up of public excessive faculties, then banned participation by transgender girls in sports activities occasions it sponsors.

That regulation didn’t tackle schools.

In response to the Motion Development Venture, a bunch that lobbies for LGBTQ+ rights, 23 states have banned transgender college students from taking part in school sports activities, though a court docket dominated that Montana’s ban was unconstitutional in 2022.

The August state Senate listening to targeted on the participation within the 2022 NCAA swimming championships by Lia Thomas, a transgender lady who swam for the College of Pennsylvania and received the 500-meter freestyle.

The witnesses and senators additionally took intention at Georgia Tech, arguing that the host of the occasion shared blame for permitting Thomas to take part and share a locker room with different swimmers.

Georgia Tech and the college system have denied in court docket papers that they’d any position in deciding whether or not Thomas would take part or what locker room she would use.