The NCAA is facing pressure to act on the role of transgender athletes in college sports after a small college association’s recent decision to ban all trans women from women’s sports.

This month, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), a small collegiate athletic governing body, decided to ban transgender women from competing in its collegiate women’s sports.

Advocates are worried the NCAA will follow the NAIA by placing new restrictions on transgender athletes. 

Athlete Ally, a queer-sports advocacy group, sent letters signed by hundreds of transgender-rights advocates Tuesday to NCAA President Charlie Baker and the board of governors, imploring the organization to continue allowing transgender athletes in women’s sports, The Washington Post reported. 

In 2022, the NCAA Board of Governors set a policy that transgender athlete participation should follow the guidelines set by the international governing bodies of each sport.

International sport governing bodies have been grappling with how to institute scientifically sound and equitable rules, The Washington Post observed. World Aquatics and World Athletics are among the groups that have heavily restricted the eligibility of transgender girls and women, barring them from competition if they have experienced testosterone-driven puberty.

The Indianapolis-based NCAA is the largest college sports governing body in the country, covering more than 500,000 student-athletes at 1,000-plus higher education institutions.

The NCAA hosted its annual Inclusion Forum in downtown Indianapolis last week, with programming focused on each of the NCAA Office of Inclusion’s five core areas: disability, international, LGBTQ, race/ethnicity and women, Axios noted. Ahead of the forum, hundreds of athletes, allies, scholars, advocacy organizations and others sent letters to the NCAA Board of Governors calling for transgender athletes to be included in NCAA sports.

In recent years, dozens of conservative state legislatures around the country — including Indiana — have passed laws banning K-12 transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity.