Following a state-level competition last year, the parents of the students who got second and third place asked the Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA) to investigate the winning student’s gender, according to the Washington Post. Without informing the first-place student or her parents, UHSAA demanded that her school check her enrolment records beginning all the way back in kindergarten to confirm that she was cisgender.
David Spatafore, the USHAA’s legislative representative, revealed the information during an August 17 committee hearing regarding Utah’s trans sports ban, which was passed earlier this year despite opposition from its governor. Spatafore said this was not the first request to investigate whether or not a student athlete was trans, with some complainants saying a “female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough.”
“We didn’t get to the parents or the student simply because all of the questions about eligibility were answered by the school or the feeder system schools,” Spatafore said at the hearing, per media reports. “There was no reason to make it a personal situation with a family or that athlete.”
Trans students in sports are “one of the more critical” issues that the USHAA has wrestled with over the past three years, Spatafore added in comments to the Post. He said that the organization, which oversees all high school athletics in Utah, started getting a “handful” of complaints about student athletes possibly being trans last school year. That was around the time that Lia Thomas, a varsity swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, gained national attention after becoming the first trans woman to win an NCAA championship.
“Utah High School Activities Association demanded that her school check her enrolment records beginning all the way back in kindergarten to confirm that she was cisgender.”
“It’s such a hot-button issue that we are preparing ourselves to have a number of complaints,” Spatafore said.
These complaints seemingly ignore how few trans student athletes there actually are in Utah. Out of the 75,000 students participating in school sports, just four are trans. According to USHAA, only one plays on a girls’ sports team.
Utah is far from being the only U.S. state that restricts trans athletics participation, even despite the fact that few trans people are even competing in school sports. According to the Movement Advancement Project, 18 states ban at least some trans students from playing on sports teams corresponding with their gender identity. These laws are part of a wave of at least 130 bills targeting trans youth to be introduced this year; other proposals seek to limit bathroom usage and access to medical care for trans minors.
Many of these laws are being challenged by civil rights and LGBTQ2S+ advocacy groups. In Utah, Judge Keith Kelly of the Third Judicial District issued a partial injunction against the state’s trans sports ban last week. The August 19 ruling, which will temporarily block the law’s enforcement, was issued in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of three Utah parents with trans teenagers.
“The ban singles out transgender girls and categorically bars them from competing on girls’ sports teams,” Kelly wrote in the decision. “At the same time, other girls are free to compete. This is plainly unfavourable treatment.”
Portions of Utah’s sports ban will remain in effect, however. In his decision, Kelly wrote that the preliminary injunction “will not mean that transgender girls will automatically be eligible to compete on their school’s girls’ teams.” Trans student athletes will still be required to meet with a committee on a case-by-case basis to decide whether they are eligible to compete in school sports.
Still, supporters of LGBTQ2S+ rights applauded the decision. “This is a win not only for my child, but for all girls in this state,” one parent involved in the lawsuit told CBS News. “I am grateful that the court has put this dangerous law on pause.”
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