Sports!

Always a controversial topic, what teams do trans children play on. Actually the answer is quite simple, the team of their gender identity. The Bangor Daily News has an article about that topic today,

Maine among first states with transgender sports participation policy
By By Ernie Clark, BDN Staff

By March 2013, Maine was one of a handful of states across the country with a transgender participation policy after its approval by the the general membership of the Maine Principals’ Association, which oversees interscholastic sports in the state.

“At that time, Colorado was in the process of putting together a policy and several New England states, including Connecticut and Vermont and us, started to have the conversation about getting in front of this issue,” said Durost, the Maine Principals’ Association’s executive director.

A little ways down on my blog I have a link to the “CT CHRO Guidelines for Schools on Gender Identity and Expression” and it says,

Question: What sports and gym classes should students be in?
Answer: Transgender students should be permitted to participate in sex-segregated athletic activities based on their gender identity. Denying students such an opportunity is likely to result in their inability to participate in sports and gym programs altogether and risks exposing the school to liability under the law. Schools are reminded that physical education programs including gym classes and school teams are educational opportunities and critical to developing optimal student health, self-esteem and well-being. To the extent that they are also competitive activities, students enjoy a range of athletic benefits based on their individual attributes (height, speed, agility, etc.). There is no educationally sound or principled justification for denying transgender students athletic opportunities and no empirical reason to believe transgender students have any particular athletic advantage because of their ability to participate based on their gender identity rather than on their assigned birth sex.

In Connecticut the process is straight forward, it is based on the child’s gender identity but it Maine it seems a little convoluted.

Under the Maine policy, a student and-or parent or guardian may notify the school administrator or athletic administrator that the student has a consistent gender identity different than the birth-assigned gender or gender listed on the student’s registration records and desires to participate in activities in a manner consistent with the student’s gender identity.

The school then requests a hearing with the Maine Principals’ Association Gender Identity Equity Committee, which consists of four present or former high school principals and assistant principals and may also include a medical professional with experience in gender identity health care and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards of care.
[…]
A confidential hearing is held within seven business days of the request, and the Gender Identity Equity panel will grant the student’s request to participate unless it is convinced the student’s claim to be transgender is not bona fide or that allowing the student to compete on a single-sex team consistent with his or her gender identity likely would give the student-athlete an unfair athletic advantage or pose an unacceptable risk of physical injury to other student-athletes.

I really don’t like the idea of a panel, how are they going to know what the child is feeling and what child would fake being trans just to get on the girl’s team. What student would want to have to live as a girl just to get on the girl’s team?