Republican legislators criticized NCAA president Charlie Baker for permitting biologically male athletes to participate in women’s sports. Baker, once a Republican governor for Massachusetts, was subject to intense questioning over the fairness of this policy during a Senate hearing on sports betting. GOP senators argued that allowing transgender athletes to compete on teams of their opposite biological sex presented obvious physical disadvantages.
Presently, the NCAA’s policy lets each sport determine its policies on transgender participation, based on the policies of their national governing body. In the absence of such policies, the sport’s international federation’s policy applies. When Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana asked if a biological male would always hold an advantage in athletic competitions against a biological female, Baker initially deemed it “debatable” but later agreed. He defended permitting transgender women to participate in women’s sports, arguing it was mandated by federal law and court decisions. However, GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri disputed these claims, criticizing the NCAA’s policies for burdening female athletes.
Baker’s responses, suggesting that NCAA policy is mandated by “federal policy”, were labeled as evasive by senators, who also questioned the organization’s stance on allowing transgender individuals to use locker rooms, showers, and toilet facilities in alignment with their gender identity.
Male-to-female transgender athletes retain certain physiological advantages despite hormone suppression, leading to unfairly competitive conditions against biologically female athletes. Imposing the necessity for female athletes to compete against transgender counterparts undermines the fundamental reasoning for having separate sex-based sports categories, denying female athletes equivalent opportunities and recognition. This stance was also supported by a UN report published in October and a study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2019.
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