They Did It!

The Minnesota’s High School Sports League approved the guidelines to let trans-students play on the team of their gender identity. There was strong opposition from the right that spent thousands of dollars on fear advertising and rallied people to the hearings, but the league’s committee did the right thing and approved the policy.

MSHSL Votes To Approve Policy For Transgender Athletes
CBS Minnesota
December 4, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota’s high schoolsports league passed a set of guidelines for transgender student-athletes on Thursday, bringing months of fevered debate to a close.
[…]
The policy, which will take effect next school year, allows transgender athletes to pick the team that fits with their gender identity and provides an appeal process for students whose schools turn down their request.

Minnesota joins 32 other states that have some guidelines for transgender students participating in high school sports, according to the MSHSL.
[…]
The policy sparked an avalanche of public input, delaying a vote scheduled for October and spawning full-page ads from opposing groups that proclaimed the guidelines would mean “the end of girls’ sports.”

Opponents again urged the board Thursday to delay or scrap those guidelines, citing concerns about giving transgender athletes an unfair advantage on girls’ teams and worries over transgender students in locker rooms. Several Republican lawmakers asked the board to let the Legislature handle the issue.

The ruling came out after this week’s U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights letter on single-sex elementary and secondary classes and extracurricular activities supporting trans-students (the full letter can be found here).

Dear Colleague:
Today, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released guidance for K-12 schools that offer or want to offer single-sex classes. In response to numerous inquiries about the legality of single-sex classes, OCR issued guidance that charts a path for schools on how they can provide boys-only or girls-only instruction while remaining in compliance with civil rights laws.
To offer single-sex classes or extracurricular activities, schools must:

•     Identify an important objective that they seek to achieve by offering a single-sex class (such as improving academic achievement);

•     Demonstrate that the single-sex nature of the class is substantially related to achieving that objective;

•     Ensure that enrollment in the single-sex class is completely voluntary (through an opt-in, rather than an opt-out, process);

•     Offer a substantially equal coed class in the same subject; 

•     Offer single-sex classes evenhandedly to male and female students;

•     Conduct periodic evaluations at least every two years to ensure that the classes continue to comply with Title IX;

•     Avoid relying on gender stereotypes;

•     Provide equitable access to single-sex classes to students with disabilities and English language learners; and,

•     Avoid discriminating against faculty members based on gender when assigning educators to single-sex classrooms.

The guidance document is presented in a question-and-answer format, offering common scenarios aimed at assisting schools and educators in designing single-sex programs that comply with Title IX.
For more information about OCR, please click here.
Thank you,
The Office for Civil Rights
U.S. Department of Education

So the next question is, will the Minnesota legislature step in to trump the league’s decision? The House is controlled by the Republicans party, the Senate is controlled by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party and the governor is from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party.

Here is the video about the vote…