The NCAA said Thursday it was barring transgender women from competing in sports.
The restriction, effective immediately, “limits competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only,” the governing body said in a statement.
The move was expected after President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday declaring that trans women were barred from competing in the women’s category in school sports at all levels.
Though there were believed to be fewer than 10 trans women—among roughly half a million NCAA athletes total—competing, the Trump administration had signaled it would move against them.
NCAA president Charlie Baker had said for months that he sought federal clarity on the issue.
“President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard,” Baker said in the NCAA’s release.
Trans athletes currently on women’s teams are allowed to continue practicing and receiving school-sponsored medical care under the new policy.
In a social media post, Trump called the ban “exciting news” and said that he expected the “Olympics Committee” to follow suit ahead of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. (There are separate committees governing Olympic sports in the United States and internationally.) Trump has also said he would deny visas to transgender women seeking to enter the United States to compete.
Trump’s Education Department—which he has said he plans to ultimately disband—announced Title IX investigations into San Jose State and the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday.
Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, an openly transgender woman, was at the center of a culture war after she transitioned in the middle of her career. A volleyball player at San Jose State is believed to be transgender but has never spoken publicly about her gender identity. Her Spartans team is the subject of ongoing litigation; a federal judge declined a request to block her from playing in the Mountain West tournament.
The previous NCAA policy allowed individual sports to follow their national body’s policies on transgender participation, and as such varied widely. Most international sports permit transgender women to compete with restrictions on their testosterone levels.
One Democratic member of the House called the Trump order “dangerous” and “illegal” in a statement to Front Office Sports on Wednesday. Several families are suing the Trump administration over a similar order barring federal funding of gender-affirming healthcare for people under 19.
The Trump administration has said it has the power to dictate sports rules under Title IX, the law that bans sex-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions.
