NCAA Boycotts North Carolina to Protest State's Transgender Bathroom Laws

Two college athletic associations have stated they will boycott North Carolina to protest the state's transgender bathroom laws. North Carolina is among 29 states that will not recognize "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" as protected classes for the purpose of bathrooms. Because of this, both the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) claim they do not want to the state to profit from championship games that may be held there.

The NCAA will move its Division I,II, and III championships out of state even though this may cost them millions of dollars in fees since the North Carolina arenas had already been booked. Meanwhile, the ACC will moved its December conference from Charlotte, NC, to an unspecified location. (In July, the NBA also decided to move its 2017 All-Star game from Charlotte.)

The decision by the college athletic organizations is difficult to rationalize. By protesting so vociferously merely on the grounds of allowing men and women to use bathrooms opposite their biological gender, they are logically opening the door for men and women to join sports teams opposite their biological gender. Having biological men who, even if they are currently taking hormone replacements, have the muscle mass and strength of biological men enter women's sports is to kill women's sports. Only individuals who were born male and can profit from the increased strength gained by their biology, will be excelling and winning on allegedly women's sports teams. Examples already abound of transgender females surpassing cis-females in high school and college competitions. Bending over backward to award unneeded protections and privileges to a small group of troubled individuals will effectively kill women's sports.

Opposition to allowing biological or transgender men to use women's restrooms is based on the privacy and safety concerns of women. The relatively few actual transgender men who wish to use a woman's public bathroom is not the concern. The concern is the open door (literally) given to male sexual predators to enter women's restrooms and molest or assault women while they are at their most vulnerable.

Examples abound. A man was caught recording women undressing in changing rooms at a Target store in Frisco, Texas. A 51-year-old, cross-dressing male in Georgia entered the women's restroom and exposed himself. In Minneapolis, a 15-year-old boy entered the girls' locker room, where five girls were in various stages of undress as they prepared for a basketball game. The boy disrobed in front of the frightened girls. When the girls and the parents complained, school authorities said they could not prevent boys from using the girls' locker room.

In a letter to the ACC, Rev. Franklin Graham pointed out their fundamental hypocrisy in boycotting North Carolina over bathroom separation laws. Both the ACC and the NCAA " rake in millions of dollars from corporate sponsors who profit from their operations in foreign countries where women and minorities are killed, tortured and treated as slaves."

Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel wrote, "The NCAA and the ACC ought to clean up their own act and stop profiting from sponsors who profit from gross violations of human rights. These athletic associations are putting women at risk and are out of touch with reality."