ATLANTA (AP) — The regents who govern Georgia’s 26 public universities and colleges voted Tuesday to call on the NCAA and another college sports association to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
The unanimous vote came after Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones of Georgia promised in August to pass a law that would ban transgender women from sporting events at public colleges.
The regents called on the NCAA and the National Junior College Athletic Association to align their policies with those of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. That association voted in April to all but ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports at its 241 mostly petite colleges.
Of the 25 schools governed by the Regents with athletic programs, four are members of the National Junior College Athletic Association, five are members of the NAIA and the remaining 16 are NCAA members. The University of Georgia and Georgia Tech are NCAA members.
All athletes are permitted to participate in NAIA-sponsored men’s sports. However, only athletes whose biological sex is female at birth and who have not started hormone therapy are allowed to participate in women’s sports.
The much larger NCAA began following national and international governing bodies’ standards for each sport in August. Previously, the NCAA’s participation policy for transgender athletes, in effect since 2010, required a year of testosterone suppression treatment and documented the submission of testosterone levels before championship competitions.
Board of Regents Secretary Chris McGraw said the junior college association allows some transgender students to participate in women’s athletics under certain circumstances.
Of the 25 board-run schools that have intercollegiate athletic programs, five are NAIA members, four are members of the Junior College Federation and 16 are members of various NCAA divisions.
“These are three very different sets of rules that currently apply to our institutions’ athletic programs,” said McGraw, also the board’s general counsel, who briefly introduced the resolution before it was approved without debate. Kristina Torres, a spokeswoman, said board members and Chancellor Sonny Perdue had no further comment. Perdue is a former Republican governor, while the board members were appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
The NCAA did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Opponents say those calling for a ban on transgender participation in women’s and girls’ sports are seeking political gain.
Jeff Graham, executive director of the LGBTQ+ rights group Georgia Equality, said the university system “should recognize the importance of diversity on many levels and care about the educational experience of all of its students, regardless of their gender or gender identity.”
“I am certainly disappointed that the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia is spending its time passing resolutions that only serve to stigmatize transgender students and misinform misinformation about the reality of what goes on in transgender athletic competitions. Athletes happen to maintain,” Graham told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Jones, a possible Republican candidate for governor in 2026, thanked the regents for their vote in a statement Tuesday. Senate Republicans raised the issue in August when they heard from five former college swimmers who are suing the NCAA and Georgia Tech over a transgender woman’s participation in the 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming Championships at the University of Atlanta.
“The work that female athletes put into competition should be protected at all costs, regardless of age,” Jones said. “This action brings us one step closer to our ultimate goal.”
Transgender women’s participation in women’s sports caused an uproar in the Georgia General Assembly in 2022, when lawmakers passed a bill allowing the Georgia High School Association to regulate transgender women’s participation in sports. The association, which consists largely of public high schools, then banned transgender women from participating in sporting events it sponsored.
This law did not affect universities. According to the Movement Advancement Project, a group that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, 23 states have banned transgender students from participating in college sports, although a court ruled in 2022 that Montana’s ban was unconstitutional.
The state Senate hearing in August focused on the 2022 NCAA Swimming Championships participation of Lia Thomas, a transgender woman who swam for the University of Pennsylvania and won the 500-meter freestyle. The witnesses and senators also took aim at Georgia Tech, arguing that the event’s host was complicit in allowing Thomas to participate and share a locker room with other swimmers.
Georgia Tech and the university system have denied in court filings that they had any role in deciding whether Thomas would attend or which locker room she would apply.
