NCAA New Ruling Creates Unfair Competition for Women-Student Athletes

Biological Male Elite Athletes Should Not Be Allowed In Elite Women’s Sports

February 10, 2022 – The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced today that it would not adopt the newly-formed USA Swimming policies regarding trans athletes for the upcoming NCAA championships, citing “unfair and potentially detrimental impacts on schools and student-athletes intending to compete in 2022 NCAA women’s swimming championships.”

The result is that female student-athletes will be competing for spots in the NCAA championship, as well as times and titles with at least one biological male student-athlete, Lia Thomas, who most recently swam competitively on the University of Pennsylvania’s mens team for two consecutive years, prior to the pandemic shut down. When athletics resumed in the 2021-2022 season, Thomas, who identifies as transgender, was allowed to compete on the women’s swimming and diving team.  Thomas has had about two years of hormone replacement therapy to lower testosterone levels, a requirement for transgender athletes. The new USA swimming requirements, which the NCAA decided not to adhere to, are more stringent. 

“We urge the NCAA to review its decision and its impact on the fundamental tenet of fairness in sports. There are more than 300 female college athletes who are being asked to put aside fairness. Their right to a level playing field should be front and center in your decisions on how entrants are eligible for competition,” said Sonia Ossorio, Executive Director of the National Organization for Women, New York City. “This year we celebrate 50 years of Title IX and the progress to increase equal opportunity in sports, which leads to scholarships, prize money, careers in sports and a shot at being the best athlete in your class. Title IX is a crowning achievement for equality and women’s rights that must be preserved.”

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, four-time Olympic medalist who won three gold medals in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (boycotted by East Germany) likens the situation to when East German Olympic swimmers dominated competition for more than a decade starting in the 1970s as a result of a systematic doping regime of performance-enhancing drugs.  Those German female athletes, some as young as 15, have described the practice as coercive, and the German Olympic Committee has compensated many of them who have suffered ailments later in life due to prolonged use of anabolic steroids.

“Once again, biological women’s cry for fair sports competition has gone unheard,” Hogshead-Makar said in a statement. “If you read the NCAA’s statement, biological women’s interests were never considered. They were never mentioned. I’m sadly aware that women’s exclusion from the table has been purposeful. I assure you, women are determined to rectify their sport’s eligibility criteria to be consistent with science and fairness.”

In January, the  NCAA announced a policy change on the rules governing transgender athletes’ participation, opting to adopt the policies of the national governing body for each sports category, rather than an overriding NCAA policy across all sports. 

USA Swimming followed by announcing its new rules for elite swimmers on Feb. 1. That policy includes a requirement that transgender women swimmers demonstrate they have maintained a testosterone level below 5 nanomoles per liter continuously for at least 36 months before competition. It also requires transgender women to provide evidence that they do not have a competitive advantage from being born male. That evidence will be reviewed by a panel of three independent medical experts.

These rules apply to events designated as “elite” by USA Swimming — such as the U.S. Open and Junior Nationals — to USA Swimming members and to those wishing to be eligible for American records beginning with the 13-14 age group. Neither the lower testosterone threshold nor the required length of time for testosterone suppression will be used at the upcoming NCAA championships. 

“The utter lack of respect for the women who are harmed by rules that allow biological men to compete in elite women’s sports is at center stage at this pivotal moment for American sports. Why are women being asked to put aside their right to fair competition, that’s the question athletes and parents and Americans across the country are asking. We demand a level playing field.”