Question:
My Response: If the question is really meant to be as simple as, “Do I think males should compete in female sports and should they share bathrooms, dressing rooms, locker rooms?” my answer is no.
But I think most people who have spent any amount of time seriously considering this issue understand that isn’t really the difficult question we are being asked to consider. The more complicated question is how do we provide transgender girls meaningful opportunities and reasonable accommodations to participate in athletics while also protecting the safety, fairness, and opportunities of cisgender girls.
Do I believe transgender students should have opportunities to participate in sports? Absolutely yes.
I am also not naive about the way this issue is framed in our politics. It is often reduced to a question designed to produce two opposing camps rather than a thoughtful conversation about students, families, fairness, safety, and opportunity. I don’t think we serve anyone well by pretending the difficult parts of this issue don’t exist, and I don’t think we serve our community well by treating children as political talking points.
I have spent a significant part of my life around athletics. I played sports throughout my youth and into college, and I have coached girls’ volleyball for more than 15 years. My own children have participated extensively in sports here in Josephine County.
That leads me to something I think every elected official should be willing to say:
I am not an expert on transgender student participation in youth athletics.
In all those years as an athlete, coach, and parent, I have never personally coached or had my children on teams with a transgender athlete. On this issue or others like it, I will not manufacture personal expertise I don’t have simply because it has become a prominent political issue.
What I can tell you is how I would approach it as your legislator.
What Oregon’s Rules Actually Say
Again, it’s important to understand that the question isn’t simply whether “boys should play girls’ sports.” That doesn’t accurately describes the difficult policy question people are actually debating or the limited situations our schools, families, and students are addressing here in House District 3.
Oregon currently prohibits discrimination based on both sex and gender identity in state-funded educational programs. Current Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) policy generally provides that once a transgender student has notified their school of their gender identity through the school’s enrollment process, the student participates according to that gender for athletic eligibility. The OSAA also leaves disputes over those determinations to the individual member school.
The Oregon Department of Education’s (ODE) current guidance similarly says schools cannot exclude a student from athletics consistent with their gender identity simply because that student is transgender.
That is the policy environment a state legislator would actually be working within. And if legislation came before me proposing to change it, I would evaluate the actual proposal rather than beginning with a predetermined political answer.
Age and Competition Matter
I also don’t think every athletic situation should automatically be treated as identical.
An elementary school recreation program designed primarily to get children outside, moving, making friends, and learning teamwork is different from varsity high school athletics where students are competing for championships, recognition, roster positions, and potentially scholarship opportunities beyond high school.
Different sports present different considerations, as well.
As competition becomes more advanced, I believe questions about competitive fairness and physical safety deserve greater consideration. Protecting opportunities that generations of women fought to establish in athletics matters to me.
At the same time, transgender student athletes are students and athletes. They deserve dignity, safety, and an opportunity to be part of their school communities too.
Good policy has to be capable of holding both thoughts at once.
Privacy and Local Control
Bathrooms and locker rooms raise another set of questions. At all times, privacy and safety matter for every student.
After listening to local school leaders, I believe our schools are and will continue working with students and parents to provide reasonable accommodations that protect privacy and safety. A cisgender student who is uncomfortable changing clothes in front of another student deserves to have that concern taken seriously. A transgender student who needs or wants privacy and safety deserves that same consideration.
I also believe strongly in local control.
A state representative’s job is to evaluate laws governing public institutions and programs receiving public dollars. It is not to micromanage individual locker rooms from Salem.
Parents, coaches, teachers, administrators, athletic directors, and local school boards are much closer to individual students and circumstances than legislators are. Our local institutions must retain the agency and ability to solve individual situations responsibly while operating within reasonable statewide protections for fairness, safety, privacy, and civil rights.
I don’t believe Salem should remove the role of judgment from the people actually responsible for our children on a daily basis.
What I Would Do as Your Representative
If legislation involving transgender student participation in publicly funded athletics came before me, I would take it seriously, and I would at a minimum consider the following before casting a vote on any specific bill:
- The lived experience of athletes, parents, coaches, school administrators, medical and athletic experts;
- whether it protects fair opportunities for cisgender girls;
- whether transgender students are being treated with the dignity we should expect for every child;
- whether there are legitimate physical-safety concerns;
- whether all students have reasonable access to privacy in locker rooms, bathrooms, and changing areas;
- what flexibility remains for parents and local school control; and
- whether age and the competitive level of the sport have been appropriately considered.
That may be less satisfying than a one-word political answer, but it is a much more honest description of how I would actually represent the people of House District 3.