State school sports board bars transgender females from competing on girls teams

The Alaska School Activities Association (ASAA) board voted 5-3 on Monday to adopt a new rule affecting transgender girls. The ASAA, which regulates school sports in Alaska, says that the new rule takes effect 30 days after the board’s vote.

Under the new rule, a transgender girl is barred from competing on girls’ teams, but is able to compete on a coed team or on a boys’ team, if a school has teams designated by gender.

“It is a misnomer to say kids are banned from sports,” says ASAA Executive Director Billy Strickland.

He likens the policy to girls not being able to participate in boys’ sports and vice versa.

“Some just might not be able to participate in every activity they want. Not every kid will make the team. But that’s also why we have multiple sports-so kids can find something, so they can all participate," Strickland said.

ACLU of Alaska officials called the move "unnecessary."

"In addition to being unconstitutional, the policy is unjustified, unnecessary, and divisive. The state has clearly not shown that the regulation is necessary, basing its proposal and passage entirely on imagined cases of transgender girls harming cisgender girls,” said Meghan Barker, the Communications Director for the ACLU of Alaska. “The ACLU of Alaska unequivocally opposes this regulation and the cavalier way ASAA is allowing it to go into effect. We will monitor its implementation and continue to speak up and advocate for trans Alaskan youth who just want to play sports like their peers."

The rule was required by the Alaska state school board, which voted unanimously back in August to approve a ban on transgender athletes participating in girls’ high school sports. The change will apply to all public high schools in the state competing under the ASAA.

At the August meeting, Board Chair James Fields said that an athlete who identifies as intersex or athletes who transitioned genders before puberty may be able to receive a waiver allowing them to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity after going through an appeal process.

According to Strickland, Native Youth Olympics and downhill skiing are the only two sports in Alaska high school athletics that are not sanctioned by ASAA, and will not be subject to the regulation.

The new ASAA rule is expected to draw legal challenges from civil rights organizations and could cause Alaska’s network of school sports to fracture.

Nearly half of U.S. states have some policy restricting the athletic participation of transgender students. There are currently 19 states with active bans on transgender athletes competing in sports that match their gender identity. Courts in four other states are deciding the fate of similar bans.

Several school districts throughout the country, including the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board (MSBSD), have passed policies barring athletes that identify as transgender from participating on teams in which they identify.

Last year, the MSBSD school board passed BP 6145, which states that eligibility to participate on team sports specific to boys or girls is determined by the athlete’s gender at birth.

“A student who participates in an athletic team or sport designated female, women, or girls must be female, based on the participant's biological sex as either female or male, as designated at the participant's birth.”

The policy states that requiring the designation of separate sex-specific athletic teams or sports is necessary to maintain fairness in athletic opportunities for women; Significant biological and physiological differences between males and females, including greater strength, speed, and endurance capabilities among males on average, provide a competitive advantage to male athletes in sports; and

Members of the state school board are appointed by Governor Mike Dunleavy.

For the past three years, the Alaska Legislature has failed to pass a bill that would set statewide policy regarding transgender students. Last year, State Senator Shelley Hughes, worked to ban transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports, which failed to pass the Legislature.