{"id":11044,"date":"2016-05-06T20:42:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-07T03:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/schools-can-decide-on-transgender-athletes\/"},"modified":"2016-05-06T20:42:46","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T03:42:46","slug":"schools-can-decide-on-transgender-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/schools-can-decide-on-transgender-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools can decide on transgender athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE <\/strong>– Alaska\u2019s governing body for high school activities says it is leaving it up to schools to decide what teams transgender students can compete on.<\/p>\n

Billy Strickland, executive director of the Alaska School Activities Association, said Wednesday that the organization will not make gender-identity determinations for schools. It also won\u2019t hear appeals from those who object to a school\u2019s decision on whether to allow students to play on teams based on the gender they identify with rather than their biological sex.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, we look at this as a participation issue,\u201d Strickland told the Alaska Dispatch News. \u201cThe school districts have to get into the nuts-and-bolts policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

If schools do not have their own guidelines on the issue, then a student \u201cmay only participate based on their gender assigned at birth,\u201d Strickland said.<\/p>\n

The association\u2019s board of directors adopted a transgender policy last week that says gender determination will remain in effect throughout a student\u2019s high school career. It goes into effect July 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a male-to-female student is allowed to participate on a girls\u2019 team, they can only participate on girls\u2019 teams for the remainder of their career,\u201d Strickland said. \u201cYou can\u2019t feel like a boy for wrestling and a girl for basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strickland said high school associations in about 30 states have adopted transgender policies, and that they have done so mainly for parents.<\/p>\n

At state sporting events, Strickland said ASAA will make \u201cany reasonable accommodation\u201d when it comes to the use of locker rooms by students. If a transgender student wants a private place to dress \u201cwe\u2019ll figure out a way to make that happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

ASAA is encouraging Alaska school districts to establish their own policies regarding transgender participation on sports teams to ensure they comply with federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender. If they don\u2019t, \u201cthey could be considered out of compliance with Title IX,\u201d which could jeopardize a school or district\u2019s federal funding.<\/p>\n

When it comes to transgender athletes, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights \u201cbelieve(s) this falls under Title IX, and schools should allow students to participate based on the gender they identify with,\u201d Strickland said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE – Alaska\u2019s governing body for high school activities says it is leaving it up to schools to decide what teams transgender students can compete on. Billy Strickland, executive director of the Alaska School Activities Association, said Wednesday that the organization will not make gender-identity determinations for schools. It also won\u2019t hear appeals from those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11044"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}