IN HARRISBURG, PA.— The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) has changed its rules about transgender players by making them follow stricter rules. The word “gender” has been replaced with “sex.”
The PIAA Board of Directors made this choice on Wednesday night, which is in line with an order from the president called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
The new policy says, “Where a student’s sex is questioned or uncertain, the decision of the school as to the student’s sex will be accepted by PIAA.”
Senior attorney at the Independence Law Center, Jeremy Samek, talked about what the change means.
“They ensured that when school districts are putting forward policies, designated sports as either male or female, that the school determines that they’re doing it based on sex and not based on concepts of identity,” said Samek.
Senior attorney Kristina Moon at the Education Law Center said that the policy’s dependence on the executive order was wrong.
“The executive order tries to apply a narrow and unworkable definition, from that EO that claims there are only two biological sexes, which is not what scientists will tell you about the reality of our world,” said Moon.
Samek also said that the policy’s goal is to make things the same all over Pennsylvania.
“The definition of sex comes from the executive order, which talks about the biological differences between men and women.” “It will make things the same all over Pennsylvania,” he said.
Moon said that the executive order is not as strong as Title IX, which says that discrimination in schools is illegal.
“This is an executive order, and a law like Title IX that protects students from discrimination in school is stronger than an executive order.” “Many courts have said under Title IX that it is still illegal to discriminate against trans, intersex, and non-binary people, and this law can’t change that,” Moon said.
Samek stressed how important it was to follow the rules for government funding.
“PIAA is looking out for the best interest of all of the schools in Pennsylvania because compliance with this law is your federal funding is contingent on compliance with this law,” he added.
Moon said that the program might be against the law in Pennsylvania.
“In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act is a state law against discrimination that specifically bans sex discrimination in schools and says that gender identity and gender expression are also protected.” So schools that seem to be in a hurry to follow an order that doesn’t have any legal weight could be breaking state law, which is very clear about protecting trans kids, she said.
It was not possible to get more information from the PIAA or a number of school systems.
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