Do you want a six foot four, two hundred pound man spiking a volleyball at a sophomore girl? Of course not and last night the Laurel school board voted to send that message to the Montana High School Association. For those who haven’t heard, The MHSA will consider a major policy change at their next meeting on January 19th in Kalispell. Simply put, it would allow boys to play on girls sports teams. The actual language of the policy says “any individual whose gender identity does not match the sex assigned to him or her at birth to participate in the team sports of whatever gender with which they identify”.
This is crazy, and I still don’t know what “the sex assigned to him at birth” actually means. It’s not like the doctor flips a coin at birth before saying, “It’s a boy”! Setting aside their awkward language, the real meat of the problem is that it turns our daughters into victims of a politically correct solution in search of a problem. As the MHSA freely admits, this problem hasn’t occurred. But they want to pass their policy anyway. When they do, female student athletes will be at risk of losing their spots on sports teams, their college scholarships, and their privacy to a top-down regulatory scheme.
The MHSA meeting will be held next Monday at the Hilton Garden Inn, we encourage everyone who can get there to go and speak their mind. You can find out more about the meeting’s time and agenda, as well as rules regarding public participation by calling (406)442-6010.
This is one of those times when grassroots participation is crucial. If the only testimony that the MHSA hears is from the ACLU, they will adopt this policy or one like it. But if they hear from parents and students across Montana, the results could be very different. We need to show up! In Billings and Dillon, massive community participation saved their towns from so-called non-discrimination ordinances that violated religious freedom. The same effort can save our female student athletes from being victimized by this politically correct, top-down mandate.
This is a policy that Montana parents don’t want, and haven’t asked for. Its unintended consequences will reach far and wide into the world of student athletics, as scholarships, state records, locker rooms and showers all come into play. Most of all, as we said before, it’s a solution in search of a problem. No reports have been received of transgender students being denied a chance to participate in athletics. With no actual problems occurring and so much that can go wrong, the only common sense step for the MHSA is to step back, take a deep breath and think this through. I hope you’ll join me in praying that they’ll take a step that’s based purely on real-world practical decision-making, and say no to putting biological boys on girls’ teams.
The final change would require a two thirds vote of the MHSA member schools. Call your school board and ask them to follow Laurel’s lead. Ask them to vote no to the policy change. This is too important to slip by unchallenged. As I said, first contact your local school board and tell them this is a bad idea, then call the Montana High School association and tell them this is a bad idea, then plan to attend their meeting next Monday in Kalispell. Together we can keep Montana a safe place to raise our children and grandchildren.
