The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) announced on Monday that only athletes who were assigned female at birth can participate in women’s sports competitions that the organization oversees.
The NAIA, a national college athletics association that governs sports at 249 small colleges throughout the United States, approved the policy in a unanimous 20-0 vote, CBS Sports reports. According to the NAIA’s website, 241 schools are considered member institutions. Of those 241, about 190 are private and 125 have a religious affiliation. Of the 20 school presidents who voted, 17 preside over Christian schools, according to the Associated Press.
“We know there are a lot of different opinions out there,” NAIA president Jim Carr told CBS Sports. “For us, we believed our first responsibility was to create fairness and competition in the NAIA…We also think it aligns with the reasons Title IX was created. You’re allowed to have separate but equal opportunities for women to compete.”
There is no conclusive evidence that trans women have any athletic advantage over cis competitors after transitioning.
Under the new rules, trans men and boys can only play on women’s teams if they are not undergoing hormone therapy, according to the Associated Press. If they are taking hormones, they will be allowed to participate in activities “internal to the institution,” such as workouts and practices, but not external competitions.
According to NAIA Council of Presidents chair and St. Ambrose University president Amy Novak, the task force that implemented this policy spent two years reviewing research and meeting with experts beforehand. “With this policy, the NAIA has made its best effort to allow for the inclusion of transgender athletes in any way which does not impact the competitive fairness of women’s sports,” she said, according to CBS Sports. “Our priority is to protect the integrity of women’s athletics and allow them equal opportunity to succeed.”
The NAIA’s decision has no effect on the rules for transgender athletes adopted by the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), which oversees approximately 1,100 schools. Rather than banning trans women and people on hormone therapy from participating in women’s sports, the NCAA adopted a policy in 2022 permitting each individual sport to determine its rules regarding the inclusion of transgender athletes. The policy allows for rules on trans athletes to be set first by the sport’s national governing body, or by an international federation where no national body exists.
On Monday, the same day as the NAIA decision to bar trans women from women’s sports, superstar NCAA coach Dawn Staley came out in favor of trans athletes. “I’m on the opinion of, if you’re a woman, you should play,” she said. “If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”
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