‘Scapegoating students who just want to be themselves, participate fully in school activities like everybody else’
Progressive organizations in Pennsylvania are miffed at the state’s recently revised rules regarding transgender athletes’ participation in school sports … and may challenge them.
The news comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed against the Colonial School District, Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, and U.S. Dept. of Education by a (biological) female runner who had to compete against a biological male in track and cross country.
The PIAA’s bylaws previously had read “Where a student’s gender is questioned or uncertain, the decision of the Principal as to the student’s gender will be accepted by the PIAA.”
After President Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, the PIAA changed “gender” to “sex,” and “Principal” to “the school.”
The ACLU of Pennsylvania, Women’s Law Project, and Planned Parenthood Association of Pennsylvania among other groups said the altered language is “unnecessary and unlawful,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
They added they would “work to defend” transgender athletes from Trump’s order.
Women’s Law Project’s Elizabeth Lester-Abdalla said “I want to assure transgender and gender-expansive students, their families, and the people who love them that they are still legally protected under state and federal law.
“Transgender Pennsylvanians have legal rights that fear-mongering rhetoric alone cannot take away, and we will work to defend them.”
The Education Law Center’s Kristina Moon said the PIAA should not be “scapegoating students who just want to be able to attend school, be themselves, and participate fully in school activities like everybody else.”
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In a March 6 letter to the PIAA, the groups said state law “independently makes clear that transgender individuals have the right not to be discriminated against based on their gender identity.”
The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act also “provides that ‘[t]he opportunity for an individual to . . . obtain all the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of any public accommodation . . . without discrimination because of . . . sex . . . is hereby recognized as and declared to be a civil right which shall be enforceable as set forth in this act.’”
The letter added that “anti-trans sports bans and restrictions only codify sexist stereotypes of how female athletes should look or play, which promotes body policing of any student who deviates from this ideal of femininity.”
PIAA Assistant Executive Director Lyndsay Barna said the organization believes Trump’s order “is binding” to all participating schools that receive federal funds.
Last week, a federal judge denied the Colonial School District female runner’s request for a restraining order forbidding biological males from competing in girls’ sports.
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