Schools On Notice To Figure Out How To Handle Transgender Athletes
3/12/2013 @ 5:13PM
by Bob Cook, Contributorhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2013/03/12/schools-on-notice-to-figure-out-how-to-handle-transgender-athletes/If high schools (and even junior high and middle schools) haven't yet thought about how they would handle a situation in which a transgender student wanted to play a sport, they'd better start.
Certainly, that's the case in Massachusetts, where in February the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education extended guidelines protecting transgender students to include their being allowed to use the restroom and play on the sports team with the sex with which they identify.
No matter how upset people might get over the mere existence of transgender students, or their participation in sports, schools nationwide are going to have to think about how they will handle the situation. Just shutting out transgender students is not an option. An attorney writing for the National Federation of State High School Associations' magazine made it pretty clear that if a school tries to prevent a transgender student from participating outright, it will risk losing a lawsuit based on Title IX, the Americans with Disabilities Acts, or various non-discrimination laws.
While school officials are holding their meetings to discuss how to implement a federal edict to expand athletics access to disabled students, they may as well, what with everyone in the room already, add transgender students to the agenda. The laudable goal is to give opportunities to as many students who want to participate in sports as possible, and it's the right thing — and, apparently, the legally safe thing — to figure out how to accomplish that.
