With all of the controversy about who should be using what bathrooms – and showers and locker rooms – in schools now that the Departments of Education and Justice tell us that a child’s gender identity trumps1 their “sex assigned at birth,” the next question is sports teams. But don’t worry. DOE and DOJ have already provided a simple, clear answer to this question. Here it is, courtesy of the “Dear Colleague letter" that DOE and DOJ sent out on May 13, 2016:
Athletics. Title IX regulations permit a school to operate or sponsor sex-segregated athletics teams when selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or when the activity involved is a contact sport. A school may not, however, adopt or adhere to requirements that rely on overly broad generalizations or stereotypes about the differences between transgender students and other students of the same sex (i.e., the same gender identity) or others’ discomfort with transgender students. Title IX does not prohibit age-appropriate, tailored requirements based on sound, current, and research-based medical knowledge about the impact of the students’ participation on the competitive fairness or physical safety of the sport.
I assume that answers any questions you might have. Either that or it leaves you so confused that you have no idea what to ask, which is pretty much the same thing.
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1 Perhaps “trumps” isn’t the right word here.
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