Christian schools’ ‘hands tied’ by gender-bender rules

‘It goes beyond having a girl compete on the wrestling team or the football team’

Come August of next year, high-school students in Minnesota will be permitted to play sports on teams with whatever gender they “identify” with, rather than what their biological gender would dictate, and a leading Christian family group believes this is a recipe for disaster.

On Thursday, the Minnesota State High School League, or MSHSL, officially adopted new policies that would require all public, private and even some religious high schools to accommodate transgender students, effective Aug. 1, 2015. The decision came in the face of fierce opposition that delayed the decision by months.

“They passed a policy that will allow students who identify as transgender to play on teams opposite their birth sex, which will almost certainly lead to them also accessing the locker rooms, bathrooms, even hotel rooms of the opposite biological sex. This is very problematic for many students, parents and even schools around the state,” said Autumn Leva, director of policy and communications at the Minnesota Family Council.

The Minnesota Family Council is one of the leading public voices against this change in policy by the MSHSL. Officials say there will be criteria to determine which students can qualify to play for teams of different biological genders. Leva and her allies offered one of their own prior to Thursday’s vote.

“We brought forward our alternative proposal that is in place in three other states,” she said. “It would simply clarify that for the purpose of high-school athletics, a student’s sex is their birth sex and that they play on teams that match their birth sex, with the exception that already exists in state law that allows girls to try out for boys’ teams (such as football or wrestling). Even though this is a valid and completely legal policy that’s in place in other states, the High School League gave no attention to that proposal.”

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