Alaska School Sports Association Bars Trans Girls From Female Teams

The governing body for school sports in Alaska has barred transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports.

The Alaska School Activities Association’s board of directors voted 5-3 Monday to adopt the policy limiting participation in girls’ sports to those assigned female at birth, several media outlets in the state report. It goes into effect immediately, the association’s executive director, Billy Strickland, told Alaska Public Radio.

The state Board of Education had adopted a similar policy in August. If the School Activities Association hadn’t followed the Board of Education’s lead, schools wouldn’t have been allowed to join the sports group. Strickland had recommended that the board of directors approve the policy.

Twenty-three states have enacted laws restricting trans athletes’ participation in school sports at the elementary and/or secondary level, and some in public colleges and universities, but Alaska chose to take this action through a regulatory body rather than legislatively.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, has backed legislative efforts to limit trans rights, including a bill requiring students to use restrooms designated for the gender they were assigned at birth and schools to inform parents if a child wishes to go by a name or pronoun other than that on record, the Alaska Beacon reports. However, this legislation hasn’t passed.

Some school districts in Alaska have approved trans-inclusive policies for sports participation, including the Anchorage district, the state’s largest. The district issued a statement expressing disappointment with the sports association’s action, according to APR.

The Anchorage School Board’s president, Margo Bellamy, had submitted written testimony against the move. “AASA should not be setting policy or interfering with local ordinances or local district policies,” she wrote. “This bylaw change will cause school districts to discriminate based on gender/sex and force districts to either comply with unreasonable and harmful requirements or seek alternatives for noncompliance.”

Arguments for the anti-trans policy included concerns that trans girls would have a competitive advantage over cisgender girls and that cis girls might be more likely to be injured in contact sports with trans athletes — arguments that activists say are specious. Strickland told APR, “From a safety standpoint, we haven’t seen that yet. From a competitive standpoint, you could make the argument that, you know, the student displaced other kids off the podium.”

He said he knew of only one trans student who’d competed in a state championship, one who finished second in track.

Just one school district had OK’d a trans-exclusionary policy before the state acted — the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, about 35 miles north of Anchorage.