Georgia university leaders ask NCAA to ban transgender women from sports

Officials who oversee Georgia’s 26 public universities and colleges voted on Tuesday to ask the NCAA and the National Junior College Athletic Association to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports. 

The state Board of Regents’ vote was unanimous and spurred by Republican Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ promise to pass legislation that would bar transgender women from athletics at public colleges. 

Jones, a likely contender for the state’s governor in 2026, praised the regents for protecting “the work female athletes put into competing,” he wrote in a statement. 

The officials expect the NCAA and the National Junior College Athletic Association to conform to the  National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ rules, which largely banned transgender women from sports in April. 

Under the NAIA’s new policies, the only athletes permitted to participate in women’s sports are those assigned female at birth and have not undergone hormone therapy. All athletes are still allowed to participate in NAIA-sponsored male sports. 

Of the 25 schools with sports programs under the regents, four are members of the National Junior College Athletic Association, five are members of the NAIA and the remaining 16 are in the NCAA. This includes the college football powerhouses Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia, which are both in the NCAA. 

The NCAA started to follow the national and international standards for each sport in August. Before, it abided by a 2010 policy that ordered one year of testosterone suppression treatment and documented testosterone levels to be submitted before any championship competitions.

Chris McGraw, the Board of Regents secretary and chief lawyer, said that the junior college federation permits transgender students to participate in women’s athletics in select cases, but that there is little consistency between the three associations. 

Critics promptly blasted the Peach State’s move.

The higher-learning system “should recognize the importance of diversity at many levels and should be there to care about the educational experience of all of their students regardless of their gender or gender identity,” said Jeff Graham of Georgia Equality, an LGBTQ rights organization.

Transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports was the hot topic of Georgia’s General Assembly in 2022 as lawmakers debated and eventually passed a law permitting the Georgia High School Association to regulate transgender women’s participation in sports.

With this newfound regulating power, the association quickly banned transgender women from participating in any sports events that it sponsors. 

The 2022 law came after senators criticized Georgia Tech for letting a transgender athlete on another school’s team participate in the NCAA swimming championships that year, which were held on its grounds.