On Aug. 31, the Alaska State Board of Education passed a new policy aimed at protecting the integrity and safety of girls’ high school sports. In a 7-0 vote the board adopted a new rule that bars gender-confused biological males from competing against females.
In the lead up to the vote, the board received thousands of letters and heard hours of public testimony for and against the proposal. It is now up to the Alaska Schools Activities Association to implement the changes for competitions across the state.
Alaska’s new policy follows on the heels of many other states that have also moved to protect women’s sports from biological males. To date, nearly half of all U.S. states have similar policies in place.
These changes have come in part due to multiple instances in which biological males have shattered female records on the way to championships and titles that have squeezed out top female athletes in recent years.
Advocates for girls sports point out that no amount of cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers can level the playing field between biological males and females.
An expert report by Dr. Gregory A. Brown, an exercise science professor at the University of Nebraska notes that males have physical advantages over females—from greater height and weight and larger, longer, and stronger bones to larger muscles and higher rates of metabolizing and releasing energy.
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But hard-left activist groups like Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and LGBTQ organizations are fighting policies that protect girls sports.
Several federal cases are making their way through the courts, and the issue may eventually be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
For now, it will be up to the ASAA board to act on the education board’s new policy and implement updated regulations governing Alaska high school sports. The first opportunity will be at the ASAA board’s next meeting scheduled for Oct. 8-10 in Anchorage.
The education board’s vote does not ban athletes who claim to be transgender from competing in sports, it only requires that males participate against those of the same biological sex. Girls are permitted to play in males sports if they try out for and successfully make it onto a boys team.
The new policy brings a level of continuity to Alaska high school sports. Before the change, it was up to each school district to determine whether transgender identifying athletes could play on girls’ teams. This created disparity for districts like the Mat-Su, which adopted a ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports earlier this year.
TAKING ACTION
— Click here to contact the Alaska School Activities Association board prior to its Oct. 8-10 meeting.
— Click here for information on how to participate in the next ASAA meeting.
12 Comments
Yah now get rid of the queer books and stop the pedo drag sh$t!
What a great day!
Thankful!
Are they banned from the bathrooms too?
I hope so. I wasn’t able to participate in the senior games this year
because public pools in Fairbanks were mandated to allow men in the bathrooms.
We weren’t going to compete against each other though. ha ha
So glad my grandchildren will be protected in competitive sports
on the track, in the pool, in the gym, and the playing fields.
Good on the board members that voted for sanity. Now we must try to help all ages of gender confused to find a path to healing before they destroy themselves completely.
Send those perverts packing. Sick and degenerate reprobate filth has no place in our education system.
Well this is hugely encouraging!
Finally some common sense.
It will be interesting to see how Anchorage School District reacts to this new rule. Will Alaska’s largest school district isolate itself from competing schools outside of Anchorage? Will Anchorage parents revolt?
The price of being Woke just went up.
The 9th Circuit put a stay a couple weeks ago on a similar policy passed by the Idaho legislature so don’t be surprised if the same thing happens with our new policy. Still glad it’s on our books – it’s an important first step. Guessing a separate case will be filed here by ACLU, Planned Parenthood, etc. to try to use the “privacy clause” in our state constitution to force girls’ sports to be open to bio males. Because Alaskan judges have used the “privacy clause” to justify the right to an abortion, I won’t be surprised if they try it for this issue. Their interpretation and application of the “privacy clause” is extremely problematic, however. Our state constitution indicates the right to privacy is to be implemented through laws. Our state constitution states: “The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed. The legislature shall implement this section.” The judges are NOT supposed to implement this section. It is to be implemented via laws. In this case, the State Board of Education adopted a regulation to clarify who could participate in girls’ sports, and that regulation was based on the statutory authority the legislature had granted to DEED – the Department of Education and Early Development; the State Board of Education is the rulemaking body for DEED. The policy in the new regulation is now the law and states that in this instance of school sports, original birth certificates can be used. If a judge comes back and states that this an infringement on privacy, I would like the US Supreme Court to weigh in on the matter. I believe SCOTUS would determine that our state judges have been loosy-goosy in their interpretation and have used their rulings to implement the “privacy clause” rather than allowing it to be implemented by law.
Thank you Senator Hughes. It’s good to know at least one person in Juneau is still sane. Do we still have others? I’ve been wandering of late.
This ruling has hone against Anchorage school districts agenda. I’m sure the tax payers eill see this in court and have to pay for it. The ninth circuit are mostly liberals so we know how tgey will rule! Better start getting money together for a Supreme Court battle.