'It goes beyond having a girl compete on the wrestling team
or the football team' by Greg Corombos, 12/4/14
Come August of next year, high-school students in Minnesota
will be permitted to play sports on teams with whatever gender they “identify”
with, rather than what their biological gender would dictate, and a leading
Christian family group believes this is a recipe for disaster.
On Thursday, the Minnesota State High School League, or
MSHSL, officially adopted new policies that would require all public, private
and even some religious high schools to accommodate transgender
students, effective Aug. 1, 2015. The decision came in the face of fierce
opposition that delayed the decision by months.
“They passed a policy that will allow students who identify
as transgender to play on teams opposite their birth sex, which will almost
certainly lead to them also accessing the locker rooms, bathrooms, even hotel
rooms of the opposite biological sex. This is very problematic for many
students, parents and even schools around the state,” said Autumn Leva,
director of policy and communications at the Minnesota Family Council.
The Minnesota Family Council is one of the leading public
voices against this change in policy by the MSHSL. Officials say there will be
criteria to determine which students can qualify to play for teams of different
biological genders. Leva and her allies offered one of their own prior to
Thursday’s vote.
“We brought forward our alternative proposal that is in
place in three other states,” she said. “It would simply clarify that for the
purpose of high-school athletics, a student’s sex is their birth sex and that
they play on teams that match their birth sex, with the exception that already
exists in state law that allows girls to try out for boys’ teams (such as
football or wrestling). Even though this is a valid and completely legal policy
that’s in place in other states, the High School League gave no attention to
that proposal.”
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Autumn Leva:
She said the clear public opinion on the matter didn’t sway
the league, either.
“Even though we brought forward a petition with close
to 7,000 Minnesotans who prefer our solution to what the league is doing. Even
public and private schools have signed on, saying this is what they wanted and
the league didn’t even give it any air time. So it’s really been a pretty
one-sided discussion,” Leva said.
Minnesota is the 33rd state to grant some sort of
high-school sports accommodation to transgender students. Leva said this
wave happened very recently, so it’s too soon to chronicle the
impact of the policies from around the country. She contends
this is a major focal point of the gay rights agenda. Leva said state
high-school athletic associations are under pressure to conform from the
the National Federation of State High School Associations, or NFHS, which
is heavily influenced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN.
She points to guidance language from the NFHS that
quotes GLSEN as proof that individual state groups like the MSHSL are being
forced to fall in line.
A bulletin from NFHS entitled, “Developing Policies for
Transgender Students on High School Teams,” and dated Nov. 21, 2014,
reads: “Transgender students are those whose gender they were assigned at birth
does not match how they identify their gender. A student might have been
identified as a boy at birth, but now identifies as a girl, or vice versa. Transgender
students often report experiencing harassment and bullying from their
classmates, as well as inaction from their teachers or coaches when they report
being taunted or physically assaulted (GLSEN, 2011).”
The MSHSL did adopt an exemption for religiously affiliated
high schools, but Leva said that provides far less protection for those schools
than the league would have Minnesotans believe.
“The league actually narrowed the exemption, so now if a
private Christian school is not directly affiliated with a particular
denomination or a specific church, they are not protected under this policy,”
she said. “So they will have to comply. That’s all of our independent Christian
schools.”
Even the schools that make that cut, Leva said, could very
easily feel the consequences of noncompliance.
“If a private religious school claims their exemption
will they lose some standing in the league? Will they be forced to forfeit
certain games? Will they be forced to allow visiting schools on their
facilities to allow their students to use facilities of the opposite sex? None
of those effects of the exemption were clarified in any way,” she said.
Leva said the practical effects of this policy are both
obvious and subtle.
“Again, that will almost certainly lead to (transgender
athletes) using the locker rooms of the opposite sex,” she said. “So we’ve got
students’ privacy right implicated, putting students of opposite sex in very
private settings, changing and using the restroom together. Obviously that’s a
huge concern to students and parents.”
Leva added, “We’ve got Title IX implications and
discrimination against female athletes, since our state statutes make very
clear that we separate female teams for a reason, to ensure that they have an
equal and fair opportunity to compete. This policy really flies in the face of
that provision.”
There’s also a health and safety component to criticism of
this policy. Leva said the physical differences between the genders are
undeniable.
“The statutes have always recognized, and federal law as
well, that there is inherent physical characteristics that are different
between males and females,” she said. “We need to take that into account for
the fairness and safety of these girls. So what this new policy will do is say
that actually doesn’t matter and that biological boys can now play on girls
teams so long as they say that they identify as a girl.”
But what about the precedent that already exists allowing
girls to play on boys’ teams in sports like football and wrestling? Is that evidence
this is not as big of a deal as Leva and others fear? Leva said the two
situations are not comparable.
“It goes beyond just having a girl complete as a girl on the
wrestling team or the football team, since there’s not a girls’ football team,”
she said. “It goes into saying, ‘This girl is actually a boy and is competing
as a boy on the football and wrestling team and should therefore have access to
the boys’ locker rooms, the boys’ hotel rooms on away games. The implications
of this are very real and very serious.”
With the debate over policy over for the moment, Leva said
it’s now families and school leaders who have to make tough decisions.
“It rests in the hands of parents, student athletes and
schools to decide what they’re going to do,” she said. “The High School League
is a volunteer association, though schools need to be a part of it in order to
compete in state athletics. But they have a choice here to whether they’re
going to comply with this policy. The league has made it mandatory, but the schools
ultimately have a choice. Parents and student athletes also have a choice.”
Source:http://www.wnd.com/2014/12/christian-schools-hands-tied-by-gender-bender-rules/
Comments
This is more ‘one rule fits all’
deals. There has to be a federal bribery or punishment scheme behind this.
Otherwise who would set up these rules for everybody ? Maybe the school construction and plumbing
contractors started this scam. There
must be several hundred folks in the entire country dealing with transgender
issues. If it hits the public schools,
more will follow. Their brains have not fully formed; for some their brains
will never fully form. If they all moved
to the same town, we wouldn’t even know this was happening.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party
Leader
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