Florida sports governing body backs off request

Facing blowback, the director of Florida’s high school sports governing body is backing away from using an eligibility form that requires female athletes to disclose their menstrual history in order to compete.

Instead, the executive director of the Florida High School Athletic Association is recommending that most personal information revealed on medical history forms stay at the doctor’s office and not be stored at school.

The association’s board has an emergency meeting today to vote on whether to adopt the four-page form — which would remove questions that force student-athletes to share details about their menstruation cycles in order to participate in sports.

Many other states ask or order female athletes to include details about their menstruation cycles with other health information.

The Florida association’s spokesperson has said the proposed changes were not in response to concerns about transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, as some social media users claim.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021 signed a bill barring transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams intended for student athletes identified as girls at birth, which put Florida into the national cultural debate over transgender rights.

Under the new Florida recommendation, answers to additional questions about mental health, alcohol and drug use, and family health history would stay in the offices of the health care practitioner who conducted the medical screening.

Committee members said making the questions mandatory rather than optional was consistent with national guidelines for sports physicals developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Sports Medicine and other groups.

National guidelines said menstrual history is an “essential discussion for female athletes” because period abnormalities could be a sign of “low energy availability, pregnancy, or other gynecologic or medical conditions.”

However, the earlier version of the form “created concerns and questions from parents, school district administrators, school board members and coaches regarding the health privacy of student-athletes,” according to the Florida association board’s Thursday meeting agenda.