Harvard University's Student Athlete Handbook no longer enumerates protections for transgender athletes, according to a report in The Harvard Crimson student newspaper.
As reported by Crimson staff writers Elyse Goncalves and Akshaya Ravi, the handbook is released at the beginning of every school year as a guide to regulations and resources for athletes across the Harvard’s 42 teams. The changes in this year’s edition are the most significant in the five years that Harvard Athletics has been led by director Erin McDermott, according to Conclaves and Ravi.
"Previous editions of Harvard’s handbook spelled out protections allowing transgender students to access facilities, such as restrooms or locker rooms, aligned with their gender identity," they wrote. "The old handbook stated that protections were maintained in accordance with University policy as well as Cambridge, Boston, and Massachusetts law.
"Neither the University’s non-discrimination policy nor the local and state laws have changed. But those protections no longer exist in the handbook."
Conclaves and Ravi continue to point out that additional protections — including a commitment to locating private facilities at away games, an expectation that coaches and staff make a “reasonable effort to honor a student’s name and gender pronouns,” and gender-inclusive uniform policies — were also removed from the handbook.
The removals come on top of changes made by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which governs most of Harvard’s varsity sports, earlier this year in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s college sports.
A new NCAA policy, instituted on the heals of an executive order by President Donald Trump, prohibits athletes assigned male at birth from competing on women’s sports teams, while allowing athletes who identify as male to compete on men’s teams.
"In response to the NCAA policy update, Harvard Athletics removed its Transgender Inclusion Policy from its website in February, replacing it with a link to the new NCAA policy that adhered to the executive order," Conclaves and Ravi wrote.
The new handbook also omitted Harvard Athletics’ Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Statement, which previously described the principles as “integral to the Harvard Athletics experience.”
No current Harvard varsity athletes have publicly identified as transgender.
