The Florida High School Athletic Association fined Monarch High $16,500 and placed the suburban Fort Lauderdale school on probation for 11 months.

Florida’s state athletic board fined a high school and put it on probation Tuesday after a transgender student played on the girls volleyball team, a violation of a controversial law enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature.

The Florida High School Athletic Association fined Monarch High $16,500, ordered the principal and athletic director to attend rules seminars and placed the suburban Fort Lauderdale school on probation for 11 months, meaning further violations could lead to increased punishments. The association also barred the girl from participating in boys sports for 11 months.

The 2021 law, which supporters named “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” bars transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams intended for student athletes identified as girls at birth.

The student, a 10th grader who played in 33 matches over the last two seasons, was removed from the team last month after the Broward County School District was notified by an anonymous tipster about her participation. Her removal led hundreds of Monarch students to walk out of class two weeks ago in protest.

  • SkyeStarfall
    8·
    11 months ago

    What about cis women with heightened testosterone levels then? They won’t exactly be beholden to strict requirements like a trans woman with regulated testosterone will.

    There’s biological variance at play in all of sports, if you start going there, you have to start asking yourself what your actual goal is? Is it protecting minorities and disadvantaged people? Or is it something akin to weight classes? Or… what?

    Either way you put it, either you allow trans women in women’s sports, or you rework the system to be based on your biology in some way, separated into classes like testosterone level, body weight, how tal you are… etc. Otherwise you will either be inconsistent in your ruling, or exclude some cis women which is what you specifically tried to avoid in the first place.