Florida Students Push Back

On Monday, at Monarch High School in Broward County, Florida, the principal, assistant principal, athletics director, and an information management technician have been reassigned to “non-school sites,” and the school’s temporary volleyball coach’s “services are paused,” while law enforcement officials with the Broward County Special Investigative Unit say they conduct an investigation into “allegations of improper student participation in sports.”

The allegation is that the faculty broke a 2021 state law (signed by Governor Ron DeSantis) by allowing a Trans girl to play on the girl’s varsity volleyball team. The law, dubbed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” bans Trans women from participating in team sports (and directs public funds to charter and private schools).

Broward County superintendent Peter Licata says a constituent, who would like to remain anonymous, called in with the allegation.

On Tuesday, in response, hundreds of Monarch students staged a walkout in support of the student and removed faculty.

The student’s family challenged the law in court in 2021, arguing that their daughter, whom they recognized as Trans at “five or six years old,” should be allowed to participate in girls’ sports. Their daughter, their lawsuit adds, “began taking hormone blockers at the age of eleven to stop testosterone and stave off male puberty.”

The Trend

The anti-trans Florida law is not unique. Since 2020, 23 states have passed laws restricting Trans participation in team sports that match their identity. In 18 of these states, Trans girls are specifically blocked: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Five additional states — Alabama, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas — block Trans boys from participating as well.

According to Trans Legislation Tracker, In 2021 144 anti-Trans bills were introduced across 37 states, and 18 of those passed. In 2022, 174 were introduced and 26 passed. In 2023, 590 bills were introduced, and at least 84 have passed.

The Science

Elizabeth Meyer, PhD. wrote in Psychology Today in response to the 2021 wave of legislation targeting Trans student athletes, “It is important to understand that sports programs are considered as part of the “educational opportunities” offered by schools and are subject to civil rights laws. They are an important part of a school community and we know that sport offers different kinds of learning and development that benefit and keep youth engaged at school much like music and arts programs.” She continued that the science does not support arguments that testosterone creates an unfair advantage (and points out that, even if it did, the hormone blockers taken by most trans students would negate it).

Meyer suggests that “If we want to regulate school sports to keep them “fair” and “safe,” then propose height and weight limits to athletes in sports that may involve contact. For example: you can’t play football, hockey, basketball, or soccer if you’re over 6-foot or weigh more than 200 pounds. This would make school sports safer and more fair, but no one is seriously proposing such a restriction.”

An article in Scientific American put it rather bluntly: “There is no epidemic of transgender girls dominating female sports. Attempts to force transgender girls to play on the boys’ teams are unconscionable attacks on already marginalized transgender children, and they don’t address a real problem. They’re unscientific, and they would cause serious mental health damage to both cisgender and transgender youth.” The article continues that a parallel history of discrimination exists. “It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time people have tried to discredit the success of athletes from marginalized minorities based on half-baked claims of ‘science.’ There is a long history of similarly painting Black athletes as ‘genetically superior’ in an attempt to downplay the effects of their hard work and training.”

“I’m One Of The Lucky Ones”

CBS News Miami also reports that the Monarch student previously spoke at a 2017 Broward County School Board meeting — when she was just ten years old — to share her experience as a Trans girl.
“I openly transitioned three years ago. It was the best time of my life. I got to be who I was born to be. I had the support of my family, friends, and teachers, but not all kids get that privilege. I know I’m one of the lucky ones. There are lots of kids who aren’t living as their true selves,” she reportedly said.

Briefly — as somebody who grew up in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, I’ve said very similar things about my family, friends and teachers — I was one of the lucky ones, too.

I didn’t feel lucky — I didn’t even feel safe. I changed schools six times before my sophomore year of High School. My luck wasn’t apparent until I started meeting folks from other backgrounds who had been through so much worse.

This Is Not An Issue

The Trevor Project estimates that 1.8 percent of youth identify as Trans. A small fraction of those participate in sports, 12 percent of Trans girls and 14 percent of Trans boys, according to a Human Rights Campaign report. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) says 7,618,054 high schoolers played sports in 2021-2022.

After Utah passed its anti-Trans law in 2022, Politico reported that, out of 85,000 students competing in high school sports in Utah, just four were Trans — and only one competed in girls’ sports. The Associated Press similarly found that of just 14 Trans athletes competing in high school sports in North Carolina, two were Trans girls.

Medical physicist and researcher Joanna Harper told Newsweek she’d be surprised if 100 of 520,000 NCAA student athletes were Trans.

Trans students deserve to feel welcomed, and Trans athletes belong on sports teams — the ones they identify with.