Indiana’s new law banning transgender female athletes from competing in college and university sports has gone into effect this month. The ban expands the state’s pre-existing ban on trans female athletes in K-12 school sports; a ban which was passed despite the state only having one trans female high school athlete.

The bill — which passed the state Senate in February, the state House in April, and was signed by a Gov. Mike Braun (R) that same month — applies to all public colleges and universities, and any private school competing against a public institution, the Public News Service reported.

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The law “prohibits a male, based on the student’s biological sex at birth in accordance with the student’s genetics and reproductive biology, from participating on an athletic team or sport designated as being a female, women’s, or girls’ athletic team or sport.” It also requires state schools and some private schools to “establish grievance procedures for a violation of these provisions.”

It also allows students and parents to file legal complaints if they suspect that a state student played alongside a trans athlete.

If they wanted to protect women in sports, they would be doing things like being certain that women’s teams have the same funding as men’s teams.”– Emma Vosicky, CEO of GenderNexus

The legislation extends the state’s anti-trans sports policies that already exist for K-12 athletes. In 2022, the Indiana legislature voted to override then-Gov. Eric Holcomb’s (R) veto of an anti-trans sports bill, which banned trans girls and women from participating in school sports. Holcomb claimed it was unconstitutional and addressed a nonexistent issue in the state.

In February, Paul Neidig, commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Association, said that only one trans female athlete had asked to play on girls’ sports team and she later withdrew her application to play, WISH-TV reported.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which covers 1,100 nationwide colleges and universities with over 530,000 student-athletes, recently said that only 10 athletes in the entire association identify as trans, a number accounting for less than 0.002% of NCAA athletes nationwide. 

Nevertheless, in March, Braun also signed two anti-trans executive orders, one banning trans women from women’s sports at the collegiate level and the other declaring there are only two genders: male and female.

“Women’s sports create opportunities for young women to earn scholarships and develop leadership skills,” he said in a statement at the time. “Hoosiers overwhelmingly don’t want those opportunities destroyed by allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports, and today’s executive order will make sure of that.” 

However, Emma Vosicky, CEO of the state trans advocacy organization GenderNexus, criticized Braun’s orders for doing nothing to actually protect female athletes.

“If they wanted to protect women in sports, they would be doing things like being certain that women’s teams have the same funding as men’s teams, that income levels which change your ability to travel on traveling squads, hire trainers, those sorts of things,” she said. “Those are the things that create inequity and those are the things that are not done, which makes it obvious that this is about coming after folks who are gender-diverse.”

Zoe O’Haillin-Berne, director of marketing and communications for the Indiana Youth Group (an LGBTQ+ youth organization), said. “Laws like [this] do more than restrict sports participation. They send a loud and resounding message that transgender youth do not belong in Indiana.”

“1041 is built on the false claim that transgender girls are dominating women’s sports,” they added. “In reality, most transgender youth avoid sports altogether. They do this because of the scrutiny and bullying that they face on a day-to-day basis.”

On a national scale, the current presidential administration has threatened to withhold pre-approved congressional funds from states that allow trans female athletes to compete alongside cisgender girls and women. Maine and California have publicly stood up to the president’s demands on this issue, but 29 states now have policies restricting trans sports participation.