Gender-bending proposal a threat to Minnesota high school sports, say critics
Gender-bending proposal a threat to Minnesota high school sports, say critics
OCT. 1: Zeam Porter talks about the years she played basketball on the girls team and how it always felt like the wrong team, during the Minnesota State High School League's public hearing on the proposed transgender policy. (Renee Jones Schneider / The Star Tribune)
Minnesota's governing body for high school sports passed rules on Thursday that one critic said could hypothetically put a future NFL linebacker at power forward on a girls basketball team.
The Minnesota State High School League voted that boys who "self-identify" as girls and girls who consider themselves boys will be able to compete on and against teams of their preferred gender under the policy that will begin in the 2015-2016 season.
"When there is confirmation of a student's consistent and uniform gender-related identitythe student will be eligible to participate in MSHSL activities consistent with the student's gender identification for the balance of the students high school eligibility," reads the policy. Executive Director Dave Stead noted earlier this year that the NCAA and 32 states already have some sort of policy or procedure in place regarding transgender student-athlete participation.
The league's media specialist tweeted out, "Minnesota will become the 33rd state to implement a policy for transgender high school athletes."
The policy requires transgender student-athletes to provide a written statement from a parent or guardian affirming the gender identity and a note from a health care professional regarding the student's consistent gender identification.
"A biological male has a larger skeletal structure, more muscle. Generally speaking this is true."- Michele Lentz, the state coordinator of the Minnesota Child Protection League
But in a column for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune , attorney John Hagen said the new rules would open the state up to lawsuits if it tried to gauge the sincerity of gender claims.
"Imagine the following scenario," Hagen wrote. "An adolescent counterpart of Clay Matthews (the very long-haired, very burly linebacker for the Green Bay Packers) comes before your school board. He declares: 'I always have had a feminine self-image. I never told anyone, because of societys expectations, but Im revealing it now. My long hair is evidence of my sincerity and my feminine self-expression.'
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The league's media specialist tweeted out, "Minnesota will become the 33rd state to implement a policy for transgender high school athletes." Good!!