Stanford University intends to ban trans athletes from women’s sports

Stanford University will be barring transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports following similar policies from the NCAA.

Policy documents obtained by The Stanford Daily show that the changes will apply to any athletes who were assigned male at birth as well as any athletes assigned female at birth and have since begun hormone therapy.

Such athletes can practice with the women’s team but no longer compete with the team, according to Stanford.

The university’s policy is similar to the policy announced by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) which prohibited transgender students from competing in women’s sports at the college level and “receive all other benefits applicable to student-athletes”.

This came after an executive order signed by President Donald Trump titled “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports”, which bans trans women and girls in female sports, stating that “ignoring fundamental biological truths between the two sexes deprives women and girls of meaningful access to educational facilities”.

This is despite the fact that studies show that trans women have no advantage in elite sports.

The order called the participation of transgender women in sports “a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth”.

It added that policies allowing trans women to compete in women’s sports are “unfair to [cisgender] female athletes and do not protect female safety”.

His executive order also threatened to withhold federal funding from any schools or universities that allow trans women and girls to compete on women’s and girl’s sport teams.

Stanford University received over $1bn of federal funding in the form of research grants in recent years.

Deputy Athletics Director Carter Henderson told The Daily: “Stanford is dedicated to maintaining a safe and respectful environment for all members of its community. As a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, we intend to follow the policies established by the NCAA.”

There is no evidence that Stanford even has any transgender women on its sport teams and NCAA president Charlie Baker told a Senate Committee in December that there were “fewer than 10” transgender athletes among the association’s 500,000 student athletes nationwide.

Following the changes, Stanford University and NCAA will be using the sex listed on an athlete’s birth certificate to confirm their eligibility to compete – though some legislators have called for gender screenings of athletes to prevent teams from ““falsely and deceptively claiming that only biological women may participate in female-specific competitions”.

The NCAA policy states that “schools are subject to local, state, and federal legislation and such legislation supersedes the rules of the NCAA” and in California, state law protects the right of transgender athletes to compete on sports teams that match their gender identity.

It is unclear whether Stanford’s new policy violates state law, with the attorney general’s office telling KQED that they would be reviewing the policy going forward.