NCAA president says there are 'less than 10' transgender athletes in college sports 

(The Hill) — NCAA President Charlie Baker told a Senate panel that there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes he is aware of who currently compete in college sports, pouring cold water on an issue Republicans have said is a nationwide problem and one that is increasingly fraught territory for Democrats. 

"How many athletes are there in the U.S. in NCAA schools?” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Baker during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on federal regulations around sports gambling. 

"Five hundred and ten thousand,” said Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts who has served as president of the NCAA, which governs intercollegiate athletics at more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the country, since 2023. 

"How many transgender athletes are you aware of?" Durbin asked. 

“Less than 10,” Baker said. He did not say whether that number includes transgender men. 

Transgender inclusion in women’s sports has become a political lightning rod, dividing the nation and playing an increasingly central role in political campaigns. 

In ads aired during the final stretch of the presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump used photos of transgender women playing sports to paint Vice President Kamala Harris as extreme and out-of-step with most Americans, who believe that trans athletes should compete on sports teams that match their sex at birth. Trump has signaled he will sign an executive order banning transgender women and girls from female sports teams once he takes office in January. 

Some Democrats have also begun to speak critically of trans-inclusive policies, sparking backlash and infighting among party members. 

Earlier on Tuesday, GOP Senators John Kennedy (La.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) grilled Baker over the NCAA’s inclusion of transgender female athletes, which the senators argued undermines the organization’s promise of ensuring fairness in college sports. 

Baker said it is “debatable” whether transgender women will “always” have a physical advantage over cisgender, or non-transgender, women. 

“You think it's debatable? You don’t think a biological male has an advantage — every time — competing against a biological female?” Kennedy asked. 

“Defined the way you defined it, I would agree with you,” Baker said. 

Available research paints a more nuanced picture.  

A recent cross-sectional study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that transgender women who completed more than one year of hormone replacement therapy performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lower-body strength and lung functioning.

Trans women’s bone density, which is linked to muscle strength, was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, and there were no meaningful differences in levels of hemoglobin, which facilitates oxygen delivery to muscles and is related to greater aerobic performance. 

An earlier study, also published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that transgender women who went through male puberty retained an athletic edge after one year of hormone therapy. The study's lead author has cautioned against using the results to categorically ban transgender athletes from competitive sports. 

Baker on Tuesday said the NCAA, which has faced mounting pressure from Republicans and conservative organizations to ban transgender athletes from competing in college sports, would not adopt such a policy because federal courts have consistently sided with participation. 

“We’re a national governing body and we follow federal law,” he said, adding that he’d be open to working with Congress to create a “federal standard” for eligibility. 

“Part of our challenge is dealing with a very murky set of court decisions at the state and federal level around this issue, which creates a certain lack of clarity around our policy because our policy ultimately needs to comply with federal policy,” Baker said. 

Twenty-five states since 2020 have passed laws prohibiting transgender children and teens from competing on school sports teams that match their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks LGBTQ laws. The majority of bans also affect participation in college sports. 

Federal judges have temporarily blocked laws from taking effect in Arizona, Utah, West Virginia and Idaho, the latter two of which have asked the Supreme Court to review their cases. A Montana judge in 2022 permanently barred the state from enforcing its 2021 prohibition on transgender athletes competing in college sports. 

In April, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which oversees collegiate sports at 241 mostly small colleges across the country, approved a policy barring most transgender women from competition. 

The NCAA has taken a different approach and, in 2022, announced that transgender participation in each sport will depend on guidelines set by the sport's national or international governing body. 

More than a dozen college athletes sued the NCAA in March, alleging the organization violated their Title IX rights when it allowed Lia Thomas, a former University of Pennsylvania swimmer and the first trans woman to win an NCAA Division I title, to compete in its national championships in Atlanta in 2022.