Education Week - September 21, 2022 - 14

Transgender Student Athletes Are In Limbo.
Will Federal Law Add Clarity?
By Libby Stanford
When Sivan Kotler-Berkowitz steps onto the soccer
field, his stress, fears, and worries wash away.
He's no longer a 17-year-old boy, a high school
senior, or a transgender advocate; he's a center
forward, one essential cog in the machine of a high
school sports team. For Kotler-Berkowitz, that's the
best feeling.
" I'm just there with my teammates, " he said.
" We're all going for one goal: to win the game, to
learn, and to have fun. Nothing else really matters
in that moment. "
But when he's off the field, Kotler-Berkowitz, and
the small number of transgender athletes like him,
are in limbo, waiting for government officials to
decide if and how they can play the sport they love.
Much of that may hinge on an upcoming interpretation
of Title IX, the federal sex discrimination law
cited both by transgender advocates and by those
who favor restrictions on trans athletes in student
sports.
Kotler-Berkowitz is among the 2 percent of U.S.
high school students who identify as transgender,
according to 2019 data from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. And he's one of the estimated
26 percent of trans boys and girls ages 13 to
17 who play a sport, according to the Human Rights
Campaign, which advocates on behalf of LGBTQ
people.
None of the transgender athletes interviewed
for this article wanted their specific town or school
published out of privacy concerns. Kotler-Berkowitz
lives in Massachusetts, which means his state's laws
protect his ability to play on boys sports teams, and
he was able to start soccer without having to even
inform his coach he is transgender.
Many transgender K-12 athletes can't say they've
had the same experience. Eighteen states have laws
banning the ability of trans students-primarily
transgender girls-to participate in sports consistent
with their gender identity, according to the Movement
Advancement Project, a think tank that tracks
laws on equity issues.
The upcoming interpretation of Title IX could affect
such efforts.
In June, the U.S. Department of Education released
proposed rules that would clarify that sex discrimination
applies to issues of gender identity and
sexuality. But the department sidestepped any official
interpretation of how the rule applies to sports.
Instead, it plans to do a separate rulemaking process,
exploring whether the law establishes a student's
right to participate in a sport that aligns with their
gender identity.
The Education Department has not released any
information on what the rulemaking process will
entail or a timeline, although it will likely take more
than a year. Meanwhile, athletes, parents, coaches,
and advocates on all sides of the issue argue time is
of the essence, growing impatient as they wait for
federal action.
The National Women's Law Center and Women's
Sports Foundation sent a letter to President
Joe Biden on Aug. 11, urging his administration to
" swiftly release a Title IX athletics rule that would
ensure all students, including transgender, nonbinary,
and intersex students, can participate fully and
equally in school sports. " Forty-eight other organizations-including
The Trevor Project, the National
Planned Parenthood Foundation, and GLSEN, a
LGBTQ rights organization dedicated to K-12 students-signed
the letter.
The debate over sports is just one of the societal divisions
surrounding young trans people, their rights,
and schools' responsibilities toward them. In the
14 | EDUCATION WEEK | September 21, 2022 | www.edweek.org
Activists protest a bill that
would limit transgender
girls' participation in girls'
sports in Indiana. An
upcoming Title IX
rulemaking process could
solidify transgender
athletes' right to participate
in sports consistent with
their gender identity.
past two years, politicians in Texas and Florida have
passed laws preventing teachers from talking about
LGBTQ issues in the classroom, requiring schools to
inform parents when students want to go by a name
other than the one on their birth certificate, and preventing
gender-affirming care for young trans people.
" This is a moment when trans youth, especially,
need to see more than attacks, which have dominated
so much of the discourse now, " said Sam
Ames, director of advocacy and government affairs
at the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides crisis
support to young LGBTQ people. " They need to see
their leaders have their backs, and they need to see
it soon. "
'You're having to prove your femininity'
The controversy centers on students like Ember,
a transgender high school senior in Ohio who asked
that her last name not be used out of concerns for
her privacy. Before Ember could start playing girls
softball during her sophomore year, she had to prove
she was trans.
For Ember, now 18, that meant completing at least
one year of hormone treatment related to her gender
transition, or demonstrating that she does not possess
physical or physiological advantages over cisgender
female athletes of the same age group.
Ember chose to go the hormone route, which allowed
her to play her sophomore year. But in her junior
year, she was also required to receive a doctor's
note to confirm she didn't have a physical advantage
by providing information on her height and weight
compared to cisgender female athletes her age.
Each year, Ember has to go through that process,
which she describes as " anxiety-inducing " and " demeaning. "
" You're
having to prove your femininity, " Ember
said. " I am having to prove that I am girl enough
to play on a girls team. That in itself is just kind of
painful. "
Despite the work she has done to prove she can be
on the girls team, Ember's ability to play softball is
under threat.
The Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill
June 1-only with Republican votes-that would
effectively ban transgender girls from playing girls
sports. Ohio House Bill 151, which was initially written
as a bill to make changes to the state's teacher residency
program, included a last-minute amendment
that prohibited sports organizations from allowing
" individuals of the male sex to participate on athletic
teams or athletic competitions designated only for
participants of the female sex. "
Under the proposal, students would have to undergo
a physical examination if they, or someone else
in their community, decides to dispute their defined
sex. That would involve receiving a doctor's statement
establishing their sex based on their " internal
and external reproductive anatomy, the participant's
normal endogenously produced levels of testosterone,
and an analysis of the participant's genetic
makeup. "
For Ember and her family, the bill feels like a personal
attack. If Ember weren't in her senior year
the family would consider moving to another state,
said her mother, Minna, who also asked that her last
name not be used for privacy reasons.
" It's heartbreaking and frustrating, " said Minna.
" It's hard not to take it personally because this is directed
at my kid. "
The Ohio bill is one example of state lawmakers
across the country labeling the inclusion of transgender
children in sports unfair, often arguing that
trans girls and women have an advantage over their
cisgender opponents.
" Allowing biological males to compete against biological
females is a discriminatory policy that turns
back the clock over a half-century on advances we
have made for women, " Ohio state Rep. Jena Powell,
a Republican who sponsored the bill, said during a
June 1 hearing.
Logistically, the debates and varying laws make
it difficult to keep up, said Anthony Nicodemo, a
Michael Conroy/AP
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