Which NCAA sports have the highest percentage of trans female participants?

1. What the NCAA policy change means for data and visibility

The February 6, 2025 NCAA decision limits competition in women’s sports to student‑athletes “assigned female at birth,” effectively removing most trans women from women’s NCAA competition; the association said trans athletes may still practice with women’s teams and receive benefits but cannot compete ^{[1] [4]}. That policy shift—and the public framing that there are “less than 10” known trans athletes—means official NCAA rosters and championship entries will no longer reflect trans women competing in women’s events going forward, shrinking the available dataset and making retroactive percentage estimates from NCAA sources difficult ^{[2] [3]}.

2. Past reporting: small absolute numbers, sport-by-sport anecdotes

Before the 2025 change, most reporting emphasized that the number of openly competing transgender college athletes was very small. NCAA President Charlie Baker testified to being aware of fewer than ten trans athletes across all NCAA sports, a figure outlets such as The Hill and other news reports cited when discussing scale ^{[2] [3]}. Independent outlets such as Outsports have documented dozens of trans athletes who have competed openly in college over many years, but those are enumerations of individuals rather than sport‑level percentage breakdowns and include athletes across divisions and time ^[5].

3. Why sport‑level percentages are not reported in current coverage

Contemporary media coverage and NCAA statements focus on policy changes, legal context and high‑profile cases rather than systematic statistics by sport. Major outlets describe how the prior 2022 sport‑by‑sport approach varied by factors such as permitted testosterone levels across governing bodies (for example, volleyball vs. rowing), but they do not publish breakdowns of trans participants by sport or percentages of rosters that were trans female ^[6]. Therefore, current reporting does not supply the sport‑level percentage data your question asks for (available sources do not mention sport‑level percentage breakdowns).

4. Where anecdote and counting efforts exist — and their limits

Outsports compiled lists of individual trans athletes who have competed in college and reported nearly 50 names as of early 2025; such lists are useful to show presence across sports (track & field, volleyball, swimming, etc.) but they are not normalized by roster size, division level, or season, so cannot produce accurate percentage rankings by sport ^[5]. Other outlets spotlighted high‑profile single‑sport cases (for example, swimming with Lia Thomas), which can skew public perception but do not prove a higher overall percentage in that sport nationwide ^[7].

5. Competing narratives and political context

News coverage makes clear the NCAA policy change was prompted by federal action and political pressure — President Trump’s executive order and related Title IX interpretations — as well as lawsuits and public controversy; the NCAA framed its move as creating a clear national standard ^{[6] [3]}. Critics within medicine and higher education warned the ban conflicts with scientific and medical consensus, and at least one NCAA medical committee member resigned in protest, underscoring conflicting viewpoints about fairness, safety and rights ^[3].

6. What would be needed to answer your question rigorously

A trustworthy ranking of NCAA sports by percentage of trans female participants would require: systematic roster‑level data collected by the NCAA (or an independent researcher) that identifies trans participants across seasons; denominators for each sport (total roster sizes across divisions and years); and privacy‑respecting consent to disclose gender‑identity data. Current public reporting and NCAA statements do not provide that dataset (available sources do not mention such comprehensive, sport‑level statistics).

7. Bottom line for readers

Current public sources agree the number of openly competing transgender college athletes has been very small and that the NCAA has moved to bar trans women from competing in women’s sports, which further reduces the likelihood that contemporary NCAA rosters will show measurable percentages of trans female competitors by sport ^{[2] [1]}. If you want precise percentages, you will need either a future independent study that compiles roster and self‑identified gender‑identity data, or a change in transparency from the NCAA and member institutions—neither of which is present in current reporting (available sources do not mention such a study).