SALT LAKE CITY – A new federal college sports bill is making waves in Utah after Attorney General Derek Brown warned it could wipe out the state’s rules on transgender athletes.
The Protect College Sports Act seeks to standardize “requirements for name, image, or likeness (NIL) agreements for college student-athletes.”
The bill sets nationwide rules for who can play in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and Division II sports, and stops states from making their own rules.
However, some Republicans worry these rules would override state bans on trans athletes from competing in women’s sports, like in Utah.
In 2022, Utah passed a law restricting trans athletes from participating in girls’ sports if they were not assigned female at birth. And in June, the Supreme Court ruled that states could ban trans athletes from women’s sports.
Trans athletes in Utah under a spotlight again
Brown and five other state attorneys general sent a letter, obtained by the Deseret News, to the bill’s sponsors urging them to add language explicitly allowing states to enforce their restrictions.
“Given what’s at stake—the integrity of women’s sports, the safety of female athletes, and basic biological reality—and the tenacity of the left in pushing a radical transgender agenda that harms our young women and families, we cannot afford to roll the dice,” the letter read.
Despite claims from the Republican attorneys general that women’s sports are under attack, there were fewer than 10 trans athletes participating in college sports nationwide in 2024.
Liz Welch, executive director of the LGBTQ+ support group Mama Dragons, told Utah Junction this rhetoric isn’t about protecting women’s sports at all.
“As mothers of LGBTQ+ children, we’ve watched our kids come alive through sports, through the friendships, the discipline, and the sense of connection that comes from being part of something bigger than themselves,” Welch said.
The letter from the attorneys general is about deciding which kids get to have those experiences, she added.
“We’d ask Attorney General Brown and every lawmaker weighing in on this bill to remember that transgender kids aren’t a talking point or political pawns. They’re someone’s child, trying to grow up healthy, connected, and authentically themselves, just like every other kid on the field,” Welch said.
The Protect College Sports Act did not make it through the Senate before Congress went on a five-week recess.
It will be revisited in September, but must pass both the Senate and the House before reaching the president’s desk.
