Group enters the contentious gender politics debate
ROUND ROCK, Texas—Texas’ University Interscholastic League is finally set to wade into the contentious debate of gender politics.
On Monday during its 75th annual meeting, the UIL’s Legislative Council created a referendum ballot to be voted on by Texas’ superintendents, asking that a birth certificate be used to determine a student-athlete’s gender.
Referendum ballots typically are sent to superintendents in January. If they pass it, and it is signed into action by the state’s commission of education, the UIL—the state’s governing body for extra-curricular activities in public schools—must put the rule into place.
According to the league’s policy director, Jamey Harrison, the proposed rule isn’t much of a change in the league’s current procedures. Although the rule hadn’t been codified into the constitution, the league had been advising school districts to use birth certificates when questions of gender came up.
“Neither the UIL, nor school districts either, are in the business of determining gender,” Harrison said. “However the state of Texas is. The state of Texas has a Bureau of Vital Statistics that determines a lot of things. And so for us to offer advice that would somehow have people arguing with what the state says a person is, in terms of gender or age or whatever the other question is, it seemed to not be a good position for us to be in.”
During the council meeting, Greg Poole—superintendent of Barbers Hill Independent School District and the chair of the Standing Committee on Athletics—said he had questioned whether the league should be even more restrictive, requiring the student-athlete’s original birth certificate, before being advised otherwise by the UIL’s legal counsel.
Poole’s interest in the rule, he said, wasn’t to “cast stones at anyone’s personal choice,” but to ensure “fair and equitable competition.”
If codified, Texas would become one of the more restrictive states in the nation for transgender students. According to research by the advocacy group TransAthlete.com, athletic organizations in 15 states and the District of Columbia—ranging from California to Wyoming—have policies that allow students to participate in activities consistent with their gender identity.
“Simply put, this is a horrible policy for transgender athletes,” wrote Chris Mosier, founder of TransAthlete.com, in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. “Categorizing transgender student athletes by their birth certificates is among the least inclusive policies at the high school level. High school athletics should focus on enabling participation, not restricting it.”
Mosier added that there is no research to support the idea that allowing a transgender girl to compete would create a competitive imbalance.
“The truth is that all people vary in size, speed, strength and skill, regardless of gender, and this concern is rooted deeply in the stereotype that people assigned male at birth will athletically outperform someone assigned female at birth, which is not necessarily true,” Mosier wrote.