NCAA faces calls to follow World Athletics, enact cheek-swab tests to compete in women's sports

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The NCAA on Tuesday faced calls to follow in the footsteps of World Athletics and enact gender tests for athletes who want to compete in women’s sports.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said cheek-swab tests will be used for athletes who want to compete in the female category. He called the process "very straightforward" and keeping women's sports fair an issue that was "important" to him. 

He added that the tests are not invasive and was ready for any criticism that could come his way.

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The NCAA is facing calls to enact gender tests for athletes who want to compete in women's sports. (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

Advocates for fairness in women’s sports called on the NCAA to go further and alter their rules in accordance with World Athletics.

Coe vowed to protect women’s sports.

"Neither of these are invasive. They are necessary, and they will be done to absolutely international medical standards," he said during a media availability. "I wouldn’t have set off down this path in 2016, 2017 to protect the female category in sport if I’d been sort of anything other than prepared to take the challenge head on.

"We’ve been to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on our [difference of sexual development] DSD regulations. They’ve been upheld, and again they’ve been upheld after appeal. We will doggedly protect the female category, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to do it. And we’re not just talking about it."

President Donald Trump signed the "No Men in Women’s Sports" executive order in February to keep biological males from playing against girls’ and women’s sports.

The NCAA