Alaska’s State Board of Education passed a resolution in favor of banning transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams.
The resolution asks the Department of Education and Early Development to divide sports teams into two categories: instead of boys and girls, there would be one for students assigned female at birth and one open to students of all gender identities.
Senate Education Committee Chair Löki Tobin sent a letter to the board on Monday opposing the resolution, saying it targets an “extremely small number of vulnerable students.”
“I find this divisive, I find this abhorrent, and I find this utterly disappointing,” she said in an interview. “We are watching the Lower 48 culture wars come to Alaska.”
Board member Lorri Van Diest introduced the resolution during a board meeting last week in Juneau. She said it was meant to ensure fairness and safety for cisgender girls.
“It really is impossible to balance the values of competitive fairness, inclusion and safety because they conflict,” Van Diest told the board. “Therefore, one has to prioritize them.”
The board voted to pass the non-binding resolution and send a copy to school districts, legislators and the Alaska School Activities Association Board of Directors. Student advisor Maggie Cothron abstained from voting.
Billy Strickland, ASAA’s executive director, said he only knows of one transgender student athlete who has competed in a state championship in Alaska during his nine years on the job.
Strickland said the association’s current bylaws leave the decision to allow transgender girls to play on girls’ teams up to school districts, as long as they have the policy in writing. For example, the Anchorage School District’s guidelines allow transgender students to participate in sports “in a manner consistent with their gender identity consistently expressed at school.”
Last year, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District approved a policy banning transgender girls from girls’ sports teams.
Strickland said if the state Department of Education changes its regulations, ASAA would follow suit.
“Our basic intent right now is to work with the Department of Education and see what they’re basically planning to do, and then just be ready to for sure be able to change it if need be,” he said.
Alaska Department of Education Legislative Liaison Laurel Shoop said she’s not aware of any new regulations in the works at the department. She said any proposed changes would go through a public hearing process through the state board.
The resolution passed a week after Gov. Mike Dunleavy introduced a bill requiring parent permission before students could change their names or pronouns at school and separating bathroom facilities by gender assigned at birth.
