Lambda Legal: NAIA Proposed Transgender Sports Ban a Disappointing and Harmful Reversal

"The NAIA announcement sends a dangerous message, is inconsistent with the law and science, and undercuts the organization's rich history of inclusion."

(Washington, DC, April 8, 2024) — Today, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the governing body for small college athletics programs, moved to ban transgender women from women's competitions beginning August 1, 2024. Lambda Legal Senior Attorney and Director of Lambda Legal's Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project Sasha Buchert released the following statement:

"It is a shocking and devastating development that the NAIA, an organization that has done so much to open doors, is now slamming those doors shut on transgender athletes, based on ignorance, prejudice, and ginned-up public hysteria. Research has amply demonstrated the many benefits for students that flow from participation in school sports, from grade school through young adulthood. But, instead of standing up in support of transgender young people, the NAIA has simply turned its back on them—permanently depriving them of the benefits of participation.

"Would that they had the courage of victorious University of South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley, who didn't miss a beat in clarifying that transgender women should be able to play. Instead, the NAIA announcement sends a dangerous message, is inconsistent with the law and science, and undercuts the organization's rich history of inclusion.

"And let's be clear — we're talking about a tiny population who are under cruel and sustained attack in state houses across the country and in the U.S. House of Representatives. It is unconscionable that an organization that touts its 'strong history of advocacy' has chosen to use its power to smack down, rather than lift up these vulnerable athletes. We urge the members of the NAIA to educate themselves further and to reconsider their position. And we sincerely hope that the much larger NCAA will not act to amplify the harm."

Lambda Legal is currently litigating on behalf of k-12 transgender athletes in West Virginia (see Website Link Here ) and Tennessee (see Website Link Here ). Lambda Legal also authored an amicus brief on behalf of 176 athletes in women's sports, the Women's Sports Foundation, and Athlete Ally in other challenges to transgender athlete bans (see Website Link Here ).