Parents pull daughters from team over safety concerns after boy allowed to compete

With tryouts starting this week, some girls do not plan to attend over concerns for their physical safety.

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Parents are planning on pulling their daughters off a Wisconsin high school sports team after a male has been allowed to compete. (Shutterstock)

(Daily Caller News Foundation) — Parents are planning on pulling their daughters off a Wisconsin high school sports team after a male was allowed to compete, according to Fox 11 News.

About 50 parents and athletes within Green Bay Area Public School District met with officials Thursday who told them that a male would be allowed to compete on a high school sports team and potentially use locker rooms on the basis of gender identity rather than biological sex, according to Fox 11 News, a Wisconsin-based outlet. With tryouts starting this week, some girls do not plan to attend over concerns for their physical safety.

“The girls are just kind of fed up hearing that your safety is our top concern from all these people and they’re really doing nothing about it,” Ryan Gusick, a parent with a daughter on the sports team, told the outlet.

The name of the school and the sport is not being named by local outlets reporting the story for safety concerns.

In the meeting, the district told the parents that the male student would be allowed to compete on the team if the student meets Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association regulations, which requires male-to-female transgender athletes to take testosterone suppression therapy for at least one year, NBC 26 reported. The school district’s transgender policy states that students should not be kept from participating in sports and that students looking to compete on the basis of gender identity will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

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“The Green Bay Area Public School District cares about the well-being of every student,” the school district said in a statement to the outlet. “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.”

Throughout the country, parents, school boards and lawmakers are debating whether sports teams should be separated on the basis of biological sex rather than gender identity; in Virginia, the high school sports authority announced that it will reject recent state guidance which requires sports teams to be separated on the basis of biological sex rather than gender identity. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that prevents men from competing on women’s sports teams in college.

“I think it really reaffirmed the fact that they’re just not going to play,” Gusick told NBC 26 following the meeting with the district. “They’re too concerned mostly about the locker room situation in itself, and the safety concern.”

Green Bay Area Public School District did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

 

Reagan Reese