Opinion

Opinion | Fair or foul?

Josie Wessinger and Declan Phipps debate if transgender athletes should participate in women’s collegiate sports.

Josie Wessinger and Declan Phipps • April 29, 2026

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Transgender women should stay out of college sports

Josie Wessinger

Since the 19th century, collegiate sports have been divided by sex to ensure fairness between men and women. As gender identity and inclusion become popular topics, the separation of sexes in collegiate sports has been widely challenged. People feel that biological differences aren’t as important as someone’s identity, and that there is no problem with transgender women participating in women’s sports.

Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” on Feb. 6, 2025. This order prohibits transgender women from competing in collegiate sports because of the unfair athletic advantages possessed by biological males. This prohibition policy has caused an uproar in society, primarily from people who lean left and are choosing not to see the scientific data proving that transgender women have the athletic prowess of a man.

It is argued that since there are less than 10 openly trans athletes in college sports, they should be allowed to compete. Just because an issue is uncommon doesn’t make it less important. Even with the rarity of an openly transgender athlete, allowing them to compete in the past led to widespread national controversy, such as the instances with Lia Thomas, Austin Killips and Laurel Hubbard. Even going back to 1977 when Renee Richards fought against the Supreme Court to play tennis in the U.S. Open. Is it really worth allowing them to compete if it leads to so much dispute? No. This has been an issue for a long time and society should be grateful that it is finally banned.

The science

There are many anatomical and endocrinological differences between a man and a woman. When a person identifies themselves as transgender, many traits can be changed, such as hormone levels, facial features and even the person’s voice.

Men have higher hemoglobin, an iron-rich protein in red blood cells that transports oxygen throughout the body. This, in addition to naturally bigger lungs, causes higher oxygen intake and faster recovery after activities such as running, swimming and other sports. A gender-affirming surgery may change testosterone and estrogen levels, but it does not change the size of a person’s lungs.

Even after testosterone suppression therapy, studies have shown that up to a quarter of transgender women don’t reach standard female levels. Instead, they end up at a hormonal range between females and males. This differentiates them from biological women with normal estrogen levels. Testosterone is the leading benefactor in enhanced physical performance. It increases muscle mass and leads to faster recovery. Since men and transgender women have higher testosterone levels than biological women, they are naturally better athletes.

The athletes

Transgender women should not be allowed to compete in any sport at the collegiate level. Both male and female college athletes train for years and are a part of the seven percent of high school athletes to compete at the collegiate level. This small percent of athletes deserve to participate in their sport amongst fair competition. By allowing transgender women in college athletics, biological female athletes would be outraced or outplayed by a biological man who thinks he’s a girl.

In 2019, CeCe Telfer, a transgender woman, won a NCAA title in the 400m hurdles. Telfer competed for Franklin Pierce University’s men’s team in 2016 and 2017. She came out as transgender and was eventually allowed to compete for the women’s team where she won a national title in June 2019. In track and field, the men’s hurdles are at a height of 36 inches. The women’s are 30 inches. Telfer had previously trained with the men’s team, on the men’s hurdles. Who is surprised that she won on hurdles 6 inches shorter? Donald Trump commented on Telfer’s win saying it was, “a grave injustice against young women.” She went on to join the U.S. Olympic team but was removed because she did not prove her eligibility under guidelines set for transgender athletes.

Additionally, transgender women should not be a part of a women’s team because of the close personal connections shared by teammates. Whether it’s traveling or everyday practice, teams share locker rooms, hotel rooms and sometimes showers. Allowing a biological man to share these spaces with women creates an uncomfortable atmosphere. Transgender woman Lia Thomas was permitted to share a locker room with her female teammates at the University of Pennsylvania and at the National Championship meet. These women said they were not made aware they would be sharing facilities with a biological man and even spoke of Thomas’s exposed “male genitalia” in the locker room. This adds to the long list of issues with the Lia Thomas controversy.

In 2022, Lia Thomas, a trans woman, won the 500-yard freestyle in the NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships. She was the first transgender athlete to win a national championship in any sport. Fellow competitor Riley Gaines spoke out against Thomas and any trans women competing in this division, saying it was unfair to cisgender female athletes. Thomas’ win was one of the main controversies that led to Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order limiting competition in women’s sports to people assigned female at birth.

William Thomas competed for the men’s swim team at UPenn during the 2019-20 season before coming out as transgender and renaming herself Lia. Thomas then switched to the women’s team in 2021, where she went on to win a National Championship, stripping that title from any deserving biological woman. Thomas is 6-foot-1 with visibly high muscle mass in her upper torso, giving her an exceptional physique for a male swimmer at the collegiate level. It is simply unfair that a person with the bone structure and lung capacity of a well-trained male swimmer would be allowed to compete against women.

This goes for all college sports. There’s a reason why the men’s hurdles are higher in track, why their volleyball net is over six inches taller than a women’s net and why women’s football is flag, not tackle. The obvious differences between a male and female athlete not only lie in the person’s physical and hormonal features, but also in the regulations set forth by each sport. The two sexes are meant to be separated in sports.

Stay the same

This is one of the most controversial debates in college sports. Why should we discriminate against transgender women and not allow them to compete in a sport they’re passionate about? If a transgender woman really wanted to compete in a sport, she should compete against men.

People who fight against the prohibition policy for transgender athletes do not understand the repercussions of their argument. While they think they’re being open-minded and “woke”, they are really rooting for the end of women’s sports as we know it. It’ll start with a handful of transgender women competing, and then the floodgates will open for former male athletes who want a chance at gold. Before long, podiums and record boards will be filled with women who were born as men.

Society needs to believe in the system we have in place because it makes sense to value an athlete’s gender from birth to the competition level. Keep transgender women out of college sports and maintain the integrity and dignity of biological female athletes who trained their whole lives to compete at this level.

Transgender women should be allowed to compete in college sports

Declan Phipps

Fewer than ten.

That’s how many NCAA athletes are openly transgender. Despite such a low number, trans athletes, specifically transgender women, are at the center of one of the most controversial topics in the United States today.

But why?

On Feb. 6, 2025, the NCAA changed its official participation policy for transgender student-athletes, allowing athletes regardless of sex assigned at birth or gender identity to compete for a men’s team, but prohibiting athletes assigned male at birth from competing for a women’s team. The change came as a result of the President of the United States, Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which claims to “protect opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports.”

However, with a lack of long-term, reliable scientific data on the effects of gender affirming hormone therapy on physical performance and such a small number of transgender NCAA athletes nationwide, a blanket ban is reckless, and a change must be made to ensure all athletes have access to a fair, safe and inclusive playing environment.

The science

The president himself implemented a ban on trans women in women’s sports, so surely there is a myriad of scientific data and evidence to support it, right?

Wrong.

There are a small number of studies on the effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) on physical performance, and even fewer are long-term studies.

The fact that a study is long-term (two years or longer) is imperative, as the longer a trans woman undergoes GAHT, the lower their testosterone levels and the closer their physical performance will be to that of a cisgender female. One of the few long-term studies came from a 2022 Air Force fitness test originally involving 223 trans women.

According to the study, after two years of receiving GAHT, run times among trans women were the same as those of cisgender women, and after four years, the number of sit-ups was not statistically different either. The only metric that remained higher among trans women was push-ups, where trans women performed 18% more push-ups than cisgender women.

While some may consider this definitive evidence that trans women retain an advantage after years of undergoing GAHT, the case isn’t closed.

Peeling back a layer of this study reveals that of the 223 trans women who began the study, 208 had dropped out by the four-year mark, a large indicator of skewed data. A detail like this is something easily overlooked, but is a glaring flaw in much of the research so often used to take athletic opportunities away from trans women.

Furthermore, height and size were not matched between trans women and cisgender women, making the data even less reliable. But that isn’t just a factor in this study.

According to a 2023 study posted on the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central, “many studies to date have been cross-sectional or uncontrolled cohort studies that do not include accurate comparator groups of cis participants matched for important attributes such as age, height and BMI [Body Mass Index].”

Such a lack of long-term, reliable data makes President Trump’s executive order and the NCAA’s ban that followed especially negligent. More research must be done to truly determine how long a trans woman needs to undergo GAHT before no longer retaining an athletic advantage.

The athletes

In Dec. 2024, NCAA President Charlie Baker testified before a Senate panel that he believed there are fewer than 10 college athletes, or less than 0.002%, who are openly transgender. Such a small number makes it puzzling that the president felt the need to sign an executive order banning some of these athletes.

Furthermore, while some may argue that lifting the ban on trans women in women’s sports will result in an overwhelming flood of trans athletes into college athletics, the NCAA had been allowing trans women to compete for 15 years before the ban. So if they weren’t flooding then, why would they now?

Another common argument for the ban of trans women from women’s sports is the story of Lia Thomas.

At the time, the NCAA’s official policy regarding transgender athletes left eligibility requirements up to each sport’s national governing body.

The governing body for swimming is USA Swimming, which, in February 2022, implemented a policy requiring trans women swimmers to provide evidence that the concentration of testosterone in their serum is less than 5 nmol/L [nanomoles per liter] continuously for 36 months.

Thomas, however, only had 34 months, technically making her ineligible to compete. So, why did the NCAA allow her to do so?

Well, according to a 2022 article from ESPN, “for the upcoming winter and spring championships, the NCAA stated that athletes who had been in compliance with the 2010 policy need only to demonstrate a testosterone serum level below the ‘maximum allowable limit’ for that sport within four weeks of the championship.”

That “maximum allowable limit” was 10 nmol/L — double that of USA Swimming’s policy.

Therefore, though Thomas did possess an advantage over her cisgender competitors, it does not justify a ban. Instead, it reveals that the NCAA was using outdated eligibility requirements that allowed Thomas to compete, justifying the need for more research on how long athletes need to receive GAHT before they no longer possess an athletic advantage.

Make a change

Though no changes can be made until President Trump’s executive order is no longer active, we must begin considering alternative options now.

A blanket ban is reckless and prevents further research on what was already such a small population of athletes.

Whether it’s reverting to the NCAA’s 2022 policy, or creating a new one based on updated data, the blanket ban on trans women from women’s sports must be lifted, and more research must be done to provide a fair, safe and inclusive environment for all athletes.

About the Contributor

Declan Phipps, copy chief

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