IMAGE: Courtesy Green Bay Area Public School District.
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Parents with students in the Green Bay Area Public School District are voicing their concerns about a transgender athlete potentially participating in a girls’ sport.
The district is expected to address the issue at a meeting Thursday night.
For confidentiality reasons, the school and sport involved will not be named.
If the transgender athlete is allowed to play on a girls’ sports team this fall, at least three sets of Green Bay parents say their daughters won’t be participating.
“They’re just not used to the ball coming at them that hard,” said Ryan Gusick, one of the concerned parents.
Tryouts for the sport are on Monday, but in summer practices and games, the parents say girls are leaving with welts and bruises they’ve never received before.
“A lot of these girls are specifically quitting this team because they’re concerned for their safety,” said Gusick.
The Green Bay Area Public School District declined to provide anyone for an interview, but sent a statement. It says the district “cares about the well-being of every student. All decisions regarding a student’s ability to participate in co-curricular athletics/activities are made in accordance with Title IX law, Board policy, and WIAA regulations.”
The WIAA has had a three-page policy for transgender athletes since 2015, according to WIAA Director of Communications Todd Clark.
Clark says he has never heard of any complaints about the policy or transgender athletes. However, he admits if there were complaints, the WIAA does not keep a record.
The policy states its goals are equity, physical safety, and competitive equity.
It states, “a student’s member school will be the point of contact for determining the student’s eligibility to participate in WIAA sponsored interscholastic athletics.”
The policy also states “a male-to-female transgender student must have one calendar year of medically documented testosterone suppression therapy to be eligible to participate on a female team.”
“The rules are very soft at best,” said Longlais. “Transgender people deserve a seat the table. It’s just not necessarily the girls’ table for sports when it’s men going to women.”
The parents say there are also locker room concerns.
The Green Bay school district’s policy for bathrooms states “in most cases, a student who is transgender will be permitted to access the men’s/women’s segregated restrooms that correspond to the gender identity that the student consistently asserts at school and in other social environments.”
For locker rooms, the district’s policy states requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis.
A statement from the district states the district “works with the transgender students to determine what they would prefer. However, they have a legal right to use the locker room. If they choose to use the locker room they gender identify with, students who may have concerns the District will work with to provide supports.”
“There’s a lot of concern from a fair amount of the girls about that situation in itself,” said Gusick.
A spokesperson for Green Bay schools says the parents of the transgender athlete declined the opportunity to be interviewed for this story.
The meeting on Thursday to go over this issue is for only players and their parents.
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