NCAAs Affirms Ban on Transgender Athletes in Women’s Sports:

After President Donald Trump signed an order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports, the NCAA made a policy change on Thursday after their Board of Governors had voted to update the policy following the order. That decision was effective immediately, officially limiting women’s sports to strictly only biological female athletes. Student-athletes who are biologically male or student-athletes who have started hormones are now prohibited from being in competitions on an NCAA women’s team. However, the policy does allow transgender women or females who have begun hormones to practice on a women’s NCAA team. The policy also states that “regardless of sex assigned at birth of gender identity, a student-athlete may participate (practice and competition) in NCAA men’s sports, assuming they meet all other NCAA eligibility requirements.” Three Penn swimmers are suing Penn, Harvard University, the Ivy League, and the NCAA for letting Lia Thomas, a 2022 college graduate and transgender athlete, compete in the women’s swimming and diving competition at Penn. Riley Gaines, former University of Kentucky swimmer and activist who tied for 5th with Thomas in the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA Championships in 2022, wrote on X (a social platform that used to be Twitter), “I wish I could’ve told [2022 Riley] what was to come in 2025. She felt cheated, betrayed, and violated. I’m just glad that girl trusted God and took a leap of faith by stating the obvious when it wasn’t popular. It was true then, and it’s true now. He’s a man.”  Another former college graduate and Penn swimmer, Paula Scanlan, wrote on X, “The NCAA finally pulled their heads out of their asses and decided to ban men from women’s sports.”