The Minnesota State High School League has voted to allow boys who identify as girls, and girls who identify as boys, to play and compete on sports teams of their “preferred gender.”
The new rule will take effect in the 2015-2016 season.
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.
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 society’s expectations, but I’m revealing it now. My long hair is evidence of my sincerity and my feminine self-expression.’
“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, told MPRNews.com. “To put them in a position where they are competing against girls, puts those girls in a situation where they could get hurt.”
However, Helen Carroll, sports project director for The National Center for Lesbian Rights, said that “only about five transgender students across the country make the sport transition each year.”
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