On Thursday, the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) board — which oversees highschool sports activities throughout the state — voted 14-2 throughout an emergency assembly to axe the questions from the 2023-2024 faculty yr medical varieties.
Under the brand new setup, pupil athletes in Florida will solely be required to submit one web page of a four-page packet linked to the medical analysis that determines whether or not they’re wholesome sufficient to play their respective sport. The remaining pages, which might be stored by mother and father or healthcare suppliers, nonetheless comprise an in-depth well being questionnaire, although the part about feminine college students’ menstrual cycles has been eradicated.
Previously, the board was contemplating following an FHSAA medical committee’s plan to make pupil athletes reply a collection of questions on their menstrual well being together with “When was your first menstrual interval?” and “How many intervals have you ever had within the final yr?”
The questions on college students’ menstrual historical past had been non-compulsory for greater than 20 years.
Kat Duesterhaus, spokesperson for the grassroots feminist group Florida NOW, tells New Times that the group is “ecstatic” to listen to that the FHSAA took the general public outcry over the inquiries to coronary heart.
She says that the response from board members is the “good instance” of the ability of advocacy.
“Schools and sports activities organizations don’t want particulars about an individual’s bodily capabilities to grasp {that a} medical skilled licensed their skill to take part in sports activities,” Duesterhaus wrote in a press release. “We applaud government director Craig Damon for being receptive to the issues of specialists, elected officers, and residents throughout the state.”
The FHSAA board is made up of 14 males and two girls; 12 of the members are elected representatives of faculties and college districts, whereas three are appointed by Florida’s schooling commissioner, who’s handpicked by the governor and in addition sits on the board.
According to an agenda merchandise for Thursday’s assembly, the board stated that whereas it acknowledges the position that medical historical past performs in a pre-participation bodily examination, it understands that it’s “vital” to guard the privateness of pupil athletes.
A variety of detractors, together with physicians, college students, mother and father, and advocacy teams, spoke out after the FHSAA sports activities drugs committee, which consists of docs and athletic trainers, proposed final month to incorporate the menstrual well being questions as obligatory components of well being evaluations. Some critics felt the measure was half of a bigger effort to stigmatize transgender college students in class sports activities, whereas others merely referred to as it an invasion of privateness. (In 2021, Gov. DeSantis signed a invoice barring transgender feminine college students from taking part in on public faculty sports activities groups with gamers recognized as feminine at delivery.)
The affiliation’s spokesperson advised media retailers that its reversal was not in response to issues about transgender athletes in girls’s sports activities, as some had beforehand expressed.
During the general public remark portion of the assembly, the board learn aloud emails from greater than 150 individuals, lots of whom blasted the board over the proposal and urged it to take away the menstrual well being questions.
Board member Doug Dodd stated throughout the Thursday assembly that if the affiliation had been to mandate these questions on menstrual historical past, he’d have a “actual drawback” with it as a mum or dad.
“As a father of three daughters who all performed center faculty and highschool sports activities…I actually perceive the priority over making these questions obligatory,” Dodd stated, noting how he and his household beforehand selected to not reply such questions on well being varieties as a result of they felt they had been intrusive.
Board members Chris Patricca and Charlie Ward solid the 2 opposing votes.
Patricca stated that whereas she did not assist the removing of the questions –– asserting that they had been a necessary a part of well being evaluations –– she concurred that the data ought to stay personal.