On Monday, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics became the first collegiate athletics governing body to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports. And the organization said that the decision came down to promoting “fairness in competition.”
Under the new policy, all athletes may participate in NAIA-sponsored male sports regardless of gender identity or hormone therapy status, but only athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth is female and who have not begun hormone therapy will be permitted in women’s sports.
NAIA President and CEO Jim Carr explained this decision a bit in an interview with the Associated Press.
“We know there are a lot of opinions, and a lot of people have a very emotional reaction to this, and we want to be respectful of all that,” Carr said. “But we feel like our primary responsibility is fairness in competition, so we are following that path. And we’ve tried as best we could to allow for some participation by all.”
The NAIA governs 241 schools across the country, most of which are smaller institutions. The majority of those institutions are private schools with varying degrees of religious affiliation. The NAIA Council of Presidents approved the new policy in a 20-0 vote.
[ESPN]
