In his sophomore year, senior Jaya Urrutia participated in cross country as a transgender male athlete. Although he preferred to compete alongside his fellow male runners, he was slotted in the girls’ division instead due to being assigned female at birth. Urrutia would have, given the courage to do so, asked to participate with the boys. However, recent policy is aiming to remove that option entirely from athletics, preventing transgender athletes from participating in sports aligning with their gender identity.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association announced on Feb. 6 that it is changing its participation policies to align with President Donald Trump’s executive order “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports.” The federal rule “targets the participation of transgender athletes, particularly transgender women (assigned male at birth but identifying as female), in women’s sports.” On the same day, Stanford Athletics followed suit to operate “all varsity sport programs in accordance with the ‘NCAA Participation Policy for Transgender Student-Athletes’,” according to a policy document obtained by The Stanford Daily.
Under the NCAA’s decision, effective immediately, student-athletes who are assigned male at birth, regardless of gender identity, will be barred from competing. The rule also applies to cisgender female athletes who are taking testosterone treatments.
NCAA President Charlie Baker informed a Senate committee in December that there were “fewer than 10” transgender athletes among the association’s 500,000 student-athletes across the country. At Stanford, however, it remains unclear whether any transgender women participate in NCAA sports teams, according to KQED.
Policy background
The executive order argues that allowing transgender women to compete on women’s teams presents concerns of “a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” It also allows federal funding to be rescinded from educational institutions that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” and violate Title IX, a federal law that supports gender equality. Stanford and the NCAA will use the sex assigned on a birth certificate to determine an athlete’s ability to participate.
Trump’s ruling is the fourth order directly targeting transgender individuals since he took office on Jan. 20, according to NBC News. For Genders and Sexualities Alliance Club president senior Noah Murase, this policy pattern reflects a broader trend of restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights.
“What we’ve been seeing since Trump has taken office is, in general, a decrease in rights and a decrease in opportunity (for the queer community),” he said.
For Urrutia, this legislative switch is a deeply unfair targeted attack on the small and specific population of transgender student-athletes.
“My first thought when I looked into it was, ‘What in the world are they thinking?’” he said. “I think that a lot of other transgender athletes have to really have a lot of courage if they do decide to participate in athletics, and they have to be really confident in themselves. I think it’s just really, really cruel to take away the option completely.”
The debate over transgender participation in women’s sports also concerns fairness in competition. Junior James Ng cited the case of Lia Thomas, the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship. In June 2024, Thomas lost a legal battle that challenged barring her from elite women’s swimming competitions.
“As a professional swimmer, Lia Thomas was ranked in the thousands against men, but when she transitioned as a transgender woman, she became number one in rankings,” Ng said. “A lot of women have complained about the sport because their hard work is getting outdone by someone who is naturally stronger and faster on average due to their physiology and genetics.”
Athletes’ testosterone levels—across age brackets and in relation to hormone therapy—are a historic and growing focal point in debates on transgender athlete participation. Urrutia argues that there is more nuance to hormones, anatomy, and biological sex than the executive order insinuates.
“Women on their periods have high testosterone, and you’re not going to stop women from competing when they’re on their period, are you?” he said.
Title IX
The crux of Trump’s executive order hinges on Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, a federal law protecting against sexual and gender-based harassment or discrimination in federally funded schools. Because Title IX protects female athletes to have equal opportunities in school sports and the executive order does not recognize transgender women as women, the order classifies them as “male competitive participants,” therefore violating the law.
On behalf of the Title IX club, club president junior Zoe Mukamal says that while the executive order cites Title IX legislation, this new NCAA policy goes against the intentions of the law.
“We do not support the new policies,” she said. “We think that everyone’s identity is valid and they should all be given the same opportunity.”
The order continues to say that transgender women playing women’s sports “results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy,” referring to all-female locker rooms.
According to Urrutia, however, this argument misrepresents the significance of a trans person using facilities designated for their chosen gender.
“If an (assigned male at birth) trans female athlete is actually confident enough to change in the girls’ locker room, that’s really good for them,” he said. “I don’t really understand how that’s an issue, because with my experience and my story, I know that I would love to use the men’s restrooms if I felt safe and comfortable doing that. I don’t really think that argument is making any effort to understand where trans people are coming from as well.”
State focus
Among 23 other states in the country, California allows transgender student-athletes to play on sports teams that match their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project—an LGBTQ+ advocacy group that tracks legislation. According to CalMatters, a bipartisan news organization, California’s state education code and policies for all three public college and university systems dedicate protections for transgender students.
Despite ongoing protections for transgender students and student-athletes, the federal government can still impose consequences, such as funding cuts, if it deems a state’s actions in conflict with federal guidelines.
As California becomes one of the central points in the national debate over athlete participation in women’s college sports, some changes appear poised to affect state law—a proposed bill introduced on Jan. 6 would ban transgender females from playing on girls’ sports teams with the California Interscholastic Federation, per CalMatters.
In the shifting political landscape for sports participation, staying informed is essential for Murase.
“On a state level, California is pretty well-defended for queer rights,” he said. “It has been since the ’90s. Obviously, change can still happen here and with other topics. So staying informed is the best thing to do. But on a national level, there is a focus for policy that is definitely speaking on queer and transgender rights.”
