ANCHORAGE, Alaska — In an unannounced move, the Alaska board of education unanimously passed a resolution Thursday afternoon that urges the state education department to limit the participation of transgender girls in girls school sports.
The resolution, which is non-binding, encourages the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development to adopt a policy that would ban transgender girls from competing alongside girls who are cisgender — meaning their gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth — in school sports. The resolution asks the education department to create two sports divisions: one exclusively for students whose sex assigned at birth is female, and another that would be open to all students of all genders.
The resolution was added unexpectedly to the agenda, on the tail end of the Alaska board of education’s three-day meeting in Juneau, which concluded Thursday.
Billy Strickland, director of the Alaska School Activities Association, said the resolution closely mirrors a policy he discussed with members of the administration of Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy last month. Strickland said members of the governor’s administration approached him to discuss banning transgender athletes from competing alongside cisgender athletes altogether, with the idea of creating three divisions: one for girls, one for boys and one coed division that could accommodate transgender athletes.
Spokespeople for the governor’s office did not immediately respond to questions on Dunleavy’s position on the issue and whether he intended to instruct the department of education to adopt the policy outlined in the board’s resolution.
Strickland said there aren’t enough transgender athletes to populate a third division. In his nine years directing the organization that oversees high school sports in Alaska, he said he has heard of only one transgender athlete. Instead, Strickland told the Dunleavy administration it would be possible to create a division only for cisgender girls, and an “open” division that could accommodate all other students, including transgender students. Girls already regularly play alongside boys in Alaska on some football and hockey teams when equivalent teams for girls don’t exist.
Under existing regulations, it is up to individual school boards and districts to adopt and implement policies pertaining to transgender athletes’ participation in school sports. Most districts don’t have a policy at all, and only the Mat-Su school board has adopted rules limiting the participation of transgender athletes in teams that align with their gender identity, Strickland said.
The policy Strickland discussed in early February with members of the governor’s administration — whom Strickland declined to name — would require transgender girls to play in the open division alongside boys, but as Strickland understood it, transgender boys whose sex assigned at birth is female could choose between the two divisions.
That regulation closely mirrored the one proposed in the non-binding resolution that passed Thursday at 4 p.m., shortly before the board adjourned.
Members of the board and the department of education declined multiple requests for a copy of the resolution on Friday. Department spokesperson Laurel Shoop said she could not provide a copy of the resolution because it had yet to be signed by board chair James Fields.
But according to a draft copy of the resolution obtained by The Anchorage Daily News, the board urged the Alaska School Activities Association to adopt the two-division proposal to protect “the integrity of high school girls’ sports.”
“The Alaska State Board of Education and Early Development supports the passage of regulations proposed by the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development and reviewed by the people of Alaska to prioritize competitive fairness and safety on the playing field while allowing all students to participate in activities,” the resolution states.
The eight-member board passed the resolution unanimously. The board’s student adviser, Maggie Cothron, abstained.
“We’re making a statement of keeping girls’ sports safe and competitive and fair, that’s all,” Fields said in a brief interview after the vote Thursday.
The resolution was brought by board member Lorri Van Diest, who did not immediately respond to a list of questions sent by email Friday.
Sen. Loki Tobin, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said Friday that the resolution had caught her “off guard” and that she had not learned about it until after it had passed. Tobin said she was concerned that the board had violated its requirement to allow the public to weigh in on resolutions before they are adopted.
Tobin said she was “very concerned” about the resolution possibly violating the right to privacy enshrined in the Alaska Constitution.
“What I’ve been able to see, this resolution could possibly violate those provisions,” said Tobin. “When I think of the handful of young people we’re talking about, I get very worried and scared about their safety. Even the optics of it creates a situation that may put some people’s lives in jeopardy.”
Tobin said that her reading of the resolution indicates the regulations have already been proposed by the education department. A spokesperson for the department did not respond to a question on whether the regulations have already been drafted.
“I am concerned primarily because I am the chair of the state policy committee for education in the Senate,” said Tobin. “I am concerned that the process just was not followed, and that we weren’t able to provide our public comment on this issue.”
Tobin said that the Legislature can “nullify” proposed regulations proposed by the education department or any other state department.
“We provide the authority to our department to do that in regulation, but that does not mean they have carte blanche to enact a regulation package that the state Legislature does not believe is in the intent and the directive of their power,” Tobin said.
The resolution from the Alaska education board — composed of individuals appointed or reappointed by Dunleavy — comes on the heels of a measure introduced by Dunleavy that would affect the rights of transgender students in Alaska. Earlier this month, he proposed a bill that would require gender nonconforming students to use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their sex assigned at birth. That bill, which has not yet been voted on by members of the Legislature, would also require parental approval for students seeking to change the name or pronouns they use in schools.
Questions on the participation of transgender athletes in sports have come up regularly in state legislatures, including Alaska’s, but Strickland said he is not familiar with other states that have resolved the issue by creating just two sports divisions.
“We might become the cutting edge of how this is being handled,” he said.
A bill that would limit the participation of transgender kids in school sports failed to pass the Senate last year, after it was proposed by GOP Sen. Shelley Hughes. GOP Rep. Tom McKay proposed a similar bill earlier this year that would allow transgender athletes to participate in a separate co-educational division, with other divisions reserved for boys and girls according to their sex assigned at birth. That bill has yet to be scheduled for a hearing.
Members of the bipartisan Alaska Senate majority this year vowed to stay clear of divisive issues, including bills pertaining to the rights of LGBTQ people.
(Samuels reported from Anchorage and Maguire reported from Juneau.)
