NCAA Will Comply with Anti-Trans Executive Order

NCAA President Charlie Baker is going to comply with Trump’s anti-trans executive order and ban trans women from participating in women’s sports. The executive order ignorantly titled “Keeping Men Out Of Women’s Sports” threatens to, “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.” Even though the EO does not require immediate action nor does it ban trans athletes from competing without first going through a series of other steps, Baker is going to cave at the thought of having any funding pulled. Baker cites the EO’s “clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards” and “clear, national standard(s)” as the reason why he is complying. Baker also contradicts himself in his statement by saying, “The Association will continue to help foster welcoming environments on campuses for all student-athletes” even though he will be actively fostering a hostile and unwelcoming environment for trans athletes. The statement also claims to “assist” any students and schools affected by the policy change but does not list how or link to any resources. When Baker served as governor of Massachusetts, he signed a bill into law that would allow trans people to use whatever bathrooms aligned with their chosen identities. It is clear that many people in power like Baker will choose to align with whichever ideology is popular at the moment instead of standing on actual values and morals. Anti-trans “activists” claim that there are advantages given to athletes taking HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and that letting trans women (who are women) participate in women’s sports makes things dangerous and unsafe for cis-gendered women. This is, again, not only ignorant and hateful, but completely rooted in transphobia and not science at all. Trump has even claimed that Olympic fighter Imane Khelif was secretly trans in an attempt to bully her after her opponent forfeited their fight last year. Khelif is a cis woman who just happens to be able to kick ass. Trump and many other conservatives are just using baseless and transphobic observations to make accusations and claims about trans people in an attempt to demonize them. My heart goes out to the athletes that will be affected by this nonsense. We will not give up on y’all.