ATLANTA (AP) — The regents who govern Georgia's 26 public universities and colleges voted on Tuesday to ask the NCAA and another college athletic federation to ban transgender women from participating in women's sports. The unanimous vote came after Georgia Lt. Gov.
Burt Jones, a Republican, vowed in August to pass legislation that would ban transgender women from athletic events at public colleges. The regents asked the NCAA and the National Junior College Athletic Association to conform their policies with those of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. That federation voted in April to all but ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports at its 241 mostly small colleges.
Of the 25 schools governed by the regents that have sports programs, four are members of the National Junior College Athletic Association, five are members of the NAIA, and the remaining 16 are NCAA members. The University of Georgia and Georgia Tech are NCAA members. All athletes are allowed to participate in NAIA-sponsored male sports.
But the only athletes allowed to participate in women’s sports are those whose biological sex assigned at birth is female and have not begun hormone therapy. The much larger NCAA began in August to follow the standards of national and international governing bodies for each sport. Before that, the NCAA policy for transgender athlete participation in place since 2010, called for one year of testosterone suppression treatment and documented.
