Today, over 400 current and former NCAA, Professional, Olympic and Paralympic athletes have sent an open letter to the NCAA Board of Governors advocating for the protection of transgender athletes’ right to participate in NCAA sports. The athletes include notable figures like WNBA coach Cheryl Reeve, USWNT champion Megan Rapinoe, as well as WNBA players Layshia Clarendon, Sue Bird, and Brianna Turner. The Washington Post covered the letters this morning, highlighting the call to prevent discrimination against trans athletes in sports.
Megan Rapinoe, a champion U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team player and Athlete Ally Ambassador, emphasized the importance of inclusive sports in the open letter. She urged fellow cisgender women athletes to stand in solidarity with transgender athletes, rejecting any bans that claim to protect women’s sports but instead promote exclusion. The athletes wanted to emphasize that everyone should have the right to participate in sports, regardless of gender identity.
In addition to the athletes’ letter, Athlete Ally, 53 LGBTQI+ advocacy organizations, 56 PFLAG chapters, and over 300 scholars and academia also penned separate letters to the NCAA Board of Governors. These letters collectively urged the NCAA to protect the rights of transgender athletes to compete in sports. They emphasized that denying transgender athletes the opportunity to participate contradicts the inclusive principles of Olympism, asserting that sports should be a human right for all individuals.
The consensus among these letters is that transgender women should have the opportunity to play NCAA sports, as expressed by NCAA March Madness women’s basketball champion coach Dawn Staley. They believe that creating an inclusive environment for all athletes to participate in sports is vital. The letters from athletes, organizations, and scholars and academia collectively advocate for the fair treatment of transgender athletes in NCAA sports.