NCAA Official Quits Over Trans Policies that 'Discriminate Against Female Student-Athletes'

A member of the NCAA Committee on Infractions has reportedly resigned his position over his disagreement with the collegiate sports organization's policy for transgender student-athletes. 

The story was first reported by the Washington Examiner after the outlet obtained the resignation letter of William Bock III.  Bock, a former general counsel for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, quit his post last week, citing the college sports organization's policy to allow transgender men to compete in women's sports as a primary reason for his separation. 

Bock has served as a committee member for the last eight years, the outlet reported, but he could no longer support the NCAA's discrimination against women. 

In his letter, Bock called out the NCAA for "regressive policies which discriminate against female student-athletes."

"Although I may not have agreed with the wisdom of every rule in the NCAA rulebook, I believed the intent behind the NCAA's rules was competitive fairness and protection of equal opportunities for student-athletes," Bock wrote. "This conviction has changed as I have watched the NCAA double down on regressive policies which discriminate against female student-athletes."

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He also spoke out against the NCAA's three-phase participation policy that allows transgender athletes to play if they have documentation proving their testosterone levels were below the allowable levels for any sport. 

But Bock rejected that policy, arguing much of the biological development that occurs before and around the time of puberty puts biological men at an advantage even if they are required to suppress testosterone levels before competition, according to The Washington Examiner. 

"There's a lot of biological development that starts at birth that allows you to maximize testosterone, and those changes that you get through development — they don't go away," Bock said. "And you're going to reduce performance by a small amount if you reduce testosterone levels, but you're never going to bridge the gap between men and women. And so it's a ruse to say that testosterone suppression, it's a level playing field, so it's not true."

Bock said he first opposed the policies that the NCAA was discussing after Lia Thomas became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship. 

As CBN News reported, Thomas made headlines after taking first place in the NCAA Div. 1 Women's Swimming and Diving Championships in March 2022.

Thomas previously tried to compete in men's swimming for three years as a man at the University of Pennsylvania before becoming transgender.

As CBN News also reported earlier this month, Thomas has been secretly mounting a legal challenge against World Aquatics, formerly known as FINA, challenging a new rule that bars most trans athletes from competing in high-level women's sporting competitions including the Olympics.

Thomas is asking the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland to overturn a 2022 World Aquatics rule stipulating that trans athletes can only compete in women's swimming if they began their gender transitions before the age of 12. A hearing for the challenge has not been set. 

In his letter, Bock said after he consulted with experts in sports physiology and developmental biology, he decided to come out against the NCAA's policy.  

"If I'm there in a sport integrity role when there's massive, essentially authorized, cheating taking place and dramatically harming women — it's just a contradiction," he said. "I couldn't seem to do that any longer and needed to resign with the hope that maybe {it} will cause other people to look at the issue more closely." 

Last weekend, a biological boy won first place in the girl's high jump competition, beating every female in the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA) indoor track and field championship, according to NHJournal.com. 

Meanwhile, New Hampshire Republican lawmakers have revived bills that would ban transgender athletes from competing in school sports that contradict their biological gender at birth, according to NHPR.org.