SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Transgender girls in Utah will be allowed to participate in girls’ sports starting the school year after a judge on Friday lifted the ban pending legal challenges from their parents.
Instead of an outright ban, transsexual girls will now be referred to a commission that will determine on a case-by-case basis if their participation jeopardizes justice. Republican Utah lawmakers created the commission under a law passed earlier this year as a backup plan to implement in the event of a court injunction against the law.
Under the law, the commission would have the power to ask for and assess a child’s height and weight when deciding whether a transgender girl would be unfairly advantaged.
The commission, to be convened in the coming weeks, will include politically appointed experts in the field of athletics and medicine.
When proposed, the commission faced criticism from supporters of transgender student-athletes — who worried they would feel targeted after their bodies were measured — and advocates of a blanket ban, who argued it didn’t go far enough.
The commission is set to take effect while a court hears a legal challenge to the blanket ban. Members have not yet been appointed, but will be in the coming weeks, legislative leaders said.
The state association, which oversees more than 80,000 high school student-athletes, said only one transgender girl competed in their leagues last year, and with school sports already underway, it’s unclear how many will be presented to the committee. and when its decisions will take effect.
The Utah ruling marked the latest court development in a nationwide debate over how to navigate the flash temperature issue.
Transgender rights advocates argue the rules are not only about sports, but also about another way to humiliate and attack transgender youth. Similar cases are pending in states such as Idaho, West Virginia and Indiana.
Utah State Judge Keith Kelly said in a ruling suspending the ban that attorneys representing the families of the three transgender student-athletes had shown they had suffered significant suffering “from being treated unfavorably as transgender.”
The transgender girls and their parents filed a lawsuit last May, arguing that the ban violates the Utah Constitution’s guarantees of equal rights and due process.
The ruling is exciting news for the girls and their families, said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who also represented same-sex couples in a landmark court case against the state of Utah last decade.
“The pressure, the strain they were under was so immense,” Minter said. “It’s just a huge relief to have that burden lifted.”
Utah Sen. Stuart Adams, a Republican, said in a statement Friday that the commission will now make decisions in a way that “protects fair and safe competition while preserving the integrity of women’s sports.”
The panel will include a medical data statistician, a physician with expertise in gender identity health, a sports physiologist, a mental health professional, a collegiate athletic trainer, a sports association representative, and an alternate member who is a coach or sports official. relevant for each case.
Minter said he hopes the commission will act simply as a hedge against allowing transgender players to play unless there is an obvious issue with the fairness of the competition.
“How it’s done is very important,” Minter said.
The decision came after an opening this week by the Utah High School Activities Association secretly studied the athlete — without telling her or her parents — after receiving complaints from the parents of the two girls she beat in a contest about whether the girl was transgender.
The investigation, which Cox has sharply criticized, determined she was indeed a woman after reviewing her school records dating back to kindergarten, association spokesman David Spatafor told lawmakers this week.
Critics of the ban were upset but said they were not surprised by the investigation. They said it highlights how the impact of the politicization of women’s sports affects more than just transgender student-athletes, and exposes all girls to scrutiny in ways they’ve come to expect.
“It creates such a negative atmosphere based on stereotypes about girls and what they should look like,” Minter said. “It’s really bad for all the kids in the state.”
The sequence of events also laid out how officials can file complaints now that youth sports and the associations that govern them are the subject of state laws. Spatafor said the complaint was one of several the association was looking into in its efforts to comply with the Utah law, which took effect in July.
https://www.gettysburgtimes.com/sports/national/article_7284b6a2-7106-5205-b6a4-45ed7d8db5d7.html
