Alaska’s state school board voted almost unanimously Thursday to advance a proposed regulation that would bar transgender girls from playing on girls’ high school sports teams in the state.
The vote will open a 30-day public comment period. After that period, the board will consider amending, rejecting or adopting the proposal.
The decision comes amid a nationwide, Republican-led movement to restrict transgender rights. Felix Myers, a non-voting student member of the school board, suggested that the board’s action was part of that movement.
Other members of the board rejected that idea, saying they are worried about competitiveness in high school sports and believe transgender girls have an advantage.
Current policy allows the activities association to decide participation on a case-by-case basis, and publicly, only one transgender athlete has competed in girls’ high school sports here at the championship level over the past nine years.
“I’d like to think this is proactive and anticipates things that could be a problem,” said Bob Griffin, a school board member who is part of a conservative and libertarian-leaning think tank.
Board members James Fields, Lorri Van Diest, Jeffrey Erickson, Bob Griffin, Sally Stockhausen and Maggie Cothron all voted in favor of advancing the regulation and opening the public comment period. Lt. Col. James Fowley, the board’s military adviser, abstained from the vote.
Cothron, the board’s student member, appeared reluctant to vote in favor of the proposal but ultimately did.
“Transgender students already receive harassment from everyone around them,” she said, suggesting that the problem could grow worse if the resolution is ultimately adopted.
“I really hope that whatever happens later on down the road, that it doesn’t turn out the way that I think it might,” she said.
Alaskans who testified by phone had mixed views of the proposal, but those who spoke in person at the school board’s meeting in Soldotna were uniformly in favor.
Current and former members of the Soldotna High School girls wrestling team sat prominently in the audience.
Trinity Donovan, one of the team members who testified, said that when she began wrestling, teams weren’t segregated by gender. She lost almost every match. After she began wrestling in a girls division, she went on to win four straight state titles before graduating this spring.
She said she feels that having transgender girls in the girls division would be like going back to what she experienced.
“If a transgender woman wants to compete in sports, I think they should have their own category, change the men’s category to an open division, or gain support in pride games,” she said.
Daisy Hannevold, a current Soldotna High School student and wrestler, said she’s also opposed to having transgender girls in the girls division.
“I find it very unsafe and unfair that transgender women can compete against me and other women,” she said. She said in her view, they aren’t women.
The United Nations, American Civil Liberties Union and various other organizations have concluded that transgender women are women, but that perspective is rejected by conservative social and religious officials.
The American Medical Association and American Association of Pediatrics accept gender fluidity with policies that say transgender people should receive gender-affirming care.
Pamela Samish of Nenana used Biblical verses to explain why she doesn’t accept transgender girls’ gender identity. In her view, the state should “stop boys who are confused from going into girls’ sports” and “completely end any LGBTQ support at all around children, period.”
Monica Whitman, who testified by phone by Eagle River, is the mother of a transgender student.
Most parents haven’t met a transgender student, she said, and it’s important to understand that “we’re all going through this experience together, and our top priority is to raise happy, healthy kids just like any other parent.”
She said hearing Thursday’s testimony was “extremely discouraging” and that the state’s proposal raises many unanswered questions.
“Most concerning to me is how the board is going to implement these policies. Trans kids are already playing sports in Alaska; we don’t have issues with trans kids dominating sports,” she said, suggesting that some closeted trans kids are participating.
“And are those kids going to be forced to be outed in order to continue playing sports? Also, how is the state going to determine which sex a student is? Are you going to have access to our child’s private medical records?” she asked.
It isn’t yet clear whether the regulation would require female players to undergo physical exams or provide their birth certificates; enforcement would be left to the Alaska School Activities Association, a nonprofit that regulates high school sports here.
Some testifiers who are opposed to the proposal said they are concerned about the possibility that the regulation would be a first step toward more broadly restricting transgender rights in Alaska overall.
The state of Alaska has already expressed an interest in restricting transition medical procedures for all Alaskans.
Until 2021, when it lost a federal lawsuit, the state’s Medicaid program refused to fund gender-affirming health care, including the transition procedures used by transgender women and men.
Last month, Alaska joined 19 other states in a friend-of-the-court brief urging a federal judge to uphold laws in West Virginia and North Carolina that ban common procedures.
Mara Kimmel, executive director of the Alaska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said her organization believes that the proposed regulation “is an alarming and unconstitutional attempt to politicize scholastic sports” and may violate the equal-protection and privacy clauses of the Alaska Constitution.
Last week, attorneys representing the Alaska Legislature, at the request of Rep. Jennie Armstrong, D-Anchorage, concluded that “it is highly likely that the proposed regulation, if adopted, will raise a legal challenge under the privacy clause of the Alaska Constitution.”
That conclusion was based on a different version of the regulation than the one advanced on Thursday, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether legislative attorneys’ conclusion will differ based on the new language.
The Alaska Department of Law, through a spokesperson, declined to respond to the legislative memo, and board members said their regulation remains under review by the department.
The public comment period for the proposed regulation will open when an official notice is posted online. The board’s next scheduled meeting is July 26.
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