On Monday afternoon, Director of Athletics Tim Ryan  ’98 emailed all student athletes to share the Athletics Department’s updated policy on transgender student-athlete participation. Ryan wrote that these changes apply to all National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports separated by gender.

“The policy outlined below applies to all practice and competition in NCAA sports in which the NCAA conducts championships separated by gender. This includes all NCAA competition (regular season, conference championships, post-season, scrimmages and exhibitions),” Ryan wrote.

The policy outlines specific rules for participation on men’s and women’s NCAA teams. For men’s teams, eligible athletes can participate in both practice and competition, regardless of gender identity or sex assigned at birth. However, athletes taking testosterone or other banned substances must receive a medical exemption.

Student athletes assigned male at birth cannot compete on women’s teams but may practice with them. Athletes assigned female at birth can practice and compete on women’s teams, unless they have begun hormone therapy, in which case they are only able to practice but not compete.

Under Bowdoin’s previous participation policy, found in the College’s Transgender Student Guide (most recently updated in fall 2024), “a student transitioning from female to male” and receiving hormone therapy could play on men’s teams but not women’s teams and “a student transitioning from male to female” could play on women’s teams after a year of testosterone suppression if they met the NCAA’s Serum Testosterone Level threshold guidelines. These laws were based on the NCAA’s 2022 transgender student-athlete participation policy.

In an email to the Orient, Ryan explained that the changes follow the lead of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) and were made to comply with recent changes to NCAA policy.

“The College will be following the new transgender athlete participation policy put in place by the NCAA and subsequently adapted by the NESCAC, and we will continue to work with our students to provide them with the most enjoyable and accessible experience possible under the updated NCAA guidance,” Ryan wrote.

Under the new NCAA terms, if the College did not update its individual participation policy, the Athletics Department would no longer be able to operate within the framework of the NCAA or the NESCAC.

This policy change follows President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender women from women’s sports, and the NCAA’s subsequent compliance with the order. The NESCAC also followed suit, modifying its previous transgender student athlete participation policy and stating,“the NESCAC operates within the framework of the NCAA and its rules and policies, and maintains the following policies consistent with the NCAA.”

The announcement of the policy change comes over a month after the release of the executive order and the updated NCAA policy. Chair of the Bowdoin Student Athlete Advisory Committee’s DEI subcommittee Anyi Sun ’26 believes the Athletics Department was working to ensure it would both support students and comply with the government and the NCAA.

“I think they’ve been trying to figure out the language behind it. With us, specifically, they just mentioned Bowdoin has our values, and it’s very important,” Sun said. “We also … don’t want to raise red flags but still want to stay with the core belief that we want to support all students and stick with that.”

In his email to student athletes, Ryan reiterated this commitment to supporting student athletes and complying with regulations going forward.

“Our athletic department will continue to support our athletes to the fullest extent possible as permitted by the NCAA and NESCAC,” Ryan wrote.

Sun also expressed the importance of creating more conversation around current events, such as this new policy change, in the student-athlete community.

“I want to get athletes more involved in discussions on current events and in politics. I think some people tend to avoid that when it’s clear there’s a divide in political views on their team,… but that impacts the amount of talking people do in terms of topics like this,” Sun said.