ATLANTA — The regents governing Georgia’s 26 public universities passed a resolution Tuesday calling on the NCAA and different college athletic federations to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
The unanimous vote came after Georgia Lt. Gov. Bert Jones, a Republican, vowed in August to pass a bill that would ban transgender women from participating in athletic events at public universities.
The board called on the NCAA and the National College Athletic Association to align their policies with those of the National Intercollegiate Athletic Association. In April, the federation voted to ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports at 241 universities, mostly small ones.
Of the 25 schools with sports programs under Regents, four are members of the National College Athletic Association, five are members of the NAIA, and the remaining 16 are members of the NCAA. The University of Georgia and Georgia Tech are members of the NCAA.
All athletes are eligible to participate in men’s sports sponsored by the NAIA. However, only athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth is female and who have not started hormone therapy can participate in women’s sports.
In August, the much larger NCAA began following the standards of each sport’s national and international governing bodies. Before that, the NCAA’s policy on transgender athlete participation, which has been in place since 2010, required a year of testosterone suppression treatment and documentation of testosterone levels before championships.
Board Secretary Chris McGraw said the junior college federation allows some transgender students to participate in women’s athletics under certain circumstances.
Of the 25 schools with board-governed intercollegiate sports programs, five are NAIA members, four are members of the Junior College Federation, and 16 are members of various divisions of the NCAA.
“These are three very different sets of rules by which athletic programs at our institutions are governed at this time,” said McGraw, who is also the board’s chief counsel, before the resolution was approved without debate. was briefly presented. Spokeswoman Christina Torres said board members and Premier Sonny Perdue had no further comment. Perdue is a former Republican governor, and the board was appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
The NCAA did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Opponents say calls for a ban on transgender people from participating in women’s and girls’ sports are for political gain.
Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, an LGBTQ+ rights group, said university systems should “recognize the importance of diversity at many levels and ensure that all students, regardless of gender or gender identity, “We should take into consideration the educational experience of students.” ”
“The University of Georgia Board of Trustees is spending its time passing resolutions that only stigmatize transgender students and perpetuate misinformation about the realities of athletics involving transgender athletes. I’m certainly disappointed,” Graham said. He spoke in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Jones, a potential Republican candidate for governor in 2026, thanked the regents for their votes in a statement Tuesday. In August, Senate Republicans heard from five former college swimmers who are suing the NCAA and Georgia Tech over transgender women’s participation in the 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming Championships at Atlanta University. clarified the problem.
“The effort that female athletes put into competing should be protected at all costs, regardless of their age,” Jones said. “This action brings us one step closer to achieving our ultimate goal.”
Transgender women’s participation in sports roiled Georgia’s General Assembly in 2022, when lawmakers passed a law that would force the Georgia High School Association to regulate transgender women’s participation in sports. The association, which is made up mostly of public high schools, has since banned transgender women from participating in its sporting events.
The law did not mention universities. According to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights group, 23 states have banned transgender students from participating in college sports, but a court will rule in 2022 that Montana’s ban is unconstitutional. was lowered.
A state Senate hearing in August focused on Leah Thomas, a transgender woman who swam at the University of Pennsylvania and won the 500-meter freestyle, to compete in the 2022 NCAA Swimming Championships. Witnesses and senators also criticized Georgia Tech, claiming that event organizers shared responsibility for allowing Thomas to participate and sharing a locker room with other swimmers.
Georgia Tech and the university system denied in court documents that they played any role in deciding whether Thomas would participate and which locker room she would use.