The NCAA says it has no plans to further tighten its transgender athlete policy following last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to bar transgender girls and women from competing on female sports teams, signaling that the organization believes its current rules already align with the changing legal landscape.
Speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation, NCAA President Charlie Baker said the association does not expect to revise its policy despite the Court’s 6-3 ruling upholding laws in West Virginia and Idaho that restrict transgender participation in girls’ and women’s school sports.
“I don’t think we’ll have to make any changes,” Baker said, noting that the NCAA had already overhauled its policy earlier this year following President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
Under the NCAA’s current rules, only athletes assigned female at birth are eligible to compete in women’s sports. Athletes assigned male at birth, including transgender women, are no longer permitted to compete in NCAA women’s competitions, regardless of hormone therapy. Men’s sports remain open to all eligible athletes regardless of gender identity.
The Supreme Court ruling itself does not directly govern NCAA athletics. Instead, it affirmed that states may legally enforce laws limiting girls’ and women’s sports based on sex assigned at birth without violating Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause. However, the decision strengthens the legal foundation supporting similar restrictions nationwide and is expected to influence future litigation and policymaking.
For transgender college athletes, Baker’s comments confirm that the NCAA’s restrictions are unlikely to loosen in the foreseeable future. Before the 2025 policy change, NCAA eligibility generally relied on sport-specific governing body rules and hormone-based eligibility standards. Those guidelines have now been replaced with one of the nation’s broadest participation bans.
The issue remains one of the most politically charged topics in American sports. Supporters of the restrictions argue they protect competitive fairness and opportunities for cisgender women, while LGBTQ+ advocates contend the policies exclude a tiny population of athletes and contribute to the broader marginalization of transgender people.
The NCAA has repeatedly emphasized that the number of transgender athletes competing in college sports is extremely small. During congressional testimony last year, Baker estimated there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes among the association’s more than 500,000 student-athletes nationwide.
With the Supreme Court’s decision now setting a national legal precedent and the NCAA indicating its policy already reflects the current political climate, transgender student-athletes face increasingly limited opportunities to compete in accordance with their gender identity. Unless Congress acts or future court decisions alter the legal landscape, the NCAA’s position appears firmly settled for now.
