NCAA president Charlie Baker reacts to Supreme Court ruling on transgender athletes
NCAA president Charlie Baker said Sunday that he does not think the organization’s policy regarding the participation of transgender athletes will change after the Supreme Court’s decision.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Tuesday in favor of West Virginia and Idaho against transgender athletes who sued to provide access to girls’ sports.
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NCAA President Charlie Baker attends the game between the Seton Hall Pirates and Providence Friars at the Prudential Center on February 11, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey. (Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
In highly anticipated decisions in West Virginia v. BPJ and Little v. Hecox, the high court upheld state laws requiring student-athletes to compete on sports teams that correspond to their biological sex at birth rather than their gender identity.
Baker appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and was asked if the NCAA would need to “tweak” its policy.
“I don’t think so. So, generally speaking, we’re trying to create policies that will hopefully have a national standard from most of our programs,” Baker said. “After I took this job, I told people in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, that we need some kind of clarity on what the national standard for this is going to be, and that we adopt and follow the standard that was put forth by the Trump administration.
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US President Donald Trump signed the “Men Are Prohibited in Women’s Sports” executive order in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 5, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“What happens at the state level, I think, is a different question. However, I think our national standards will be the standards that we expect our schools to use in matters of college sports eligibility.”
The NCAA changed its gender eligibility policy in February 2025 after President Donald Trump signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order.
Reversing the previous policy that had allowed transgender athletes in women’s sports since 2010, the new policy now states that “a student-athlete assigned male at birth may train on an NCAA women’s team and receive all other benefits applicable to student-athletes.”
Many critics insisted that the policy did not go far enough or create clear enough barriers to protect female athletes in the college ranks. The most common criticism has been the claim that the policy allows transgender athletes to get around the restriction by changing the gender on their birth certificates.
FILE – In a March 12, 2020, file photo, the NCAA’s national office in Indianapolis is viewed.
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In the US, 44 states allow altering birth certificates to change a person’s birth gender. The only states that do not allow this are Florida, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Montana. Meanwhile, there are 14 states that allow changing the gender on a birth certificate without requiring any medical documentation, including California, New York, Massachusetts and Michigan.
Fox News’ Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.
