A transgender student has been banned from all high school sports after competing on a girl’s volleyball team in violation of state law, the Florida High School Athletic Association ruled.
A letter to the school’s interim principal also revealed the association fined Monarch High School $16,500 for the violation.
The monetary fine reflects a penalty of $500 per game for the 33 matches the unidentified student participated in, according to the association.
‘So now we are punishing student athletes and wasting money on fines that could be used to support our schools and our students?’ said Jennifer Solomon of Equality Florida, an LGBTQ advocacy group.
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The student has been banned from playing on any of the association’s sports teams until November 20, 2024 – a year after the violation was recognized.
The letter also detailed that Monarch High was reprimanded, placed on probation and the principal and athletic director are required to attend compliance seminars for the upcoming school year.
The transgender’s student’s involvement on the sports team is now under investigation by the Broward School District.
‘The District is in receipt of the letter from the Florida High School Athletic Association regarding the recent incident at Monarch High School. The District’s investigation into the matter remains ongoing at this time,’ district spokesman John Sullivan told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Once the news broke that the student participated on the girls volleyball team, the high school’s principal and three other school officials were reassigned.
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Principal James Cecil, assistant principal Kenneth May, athletic director Dione Hester and volleyball coach Jessica Norton were all shuffled away from teaching roles.
Norton later revealed she is the mother of the transgender student.
Alex Burgess, the former volleyball coach recently revealed that he was unaware that the player was born a male and that he only found out last month despite the student identifying as a girl since she was a toddler.
‘I had no clue,’ he said. ‘I guess there was some people who already knew, but I guess whoever came in to kind of investigate kind of pointed fingers at her.’
The student began taking hormone blockers at the age of 11 and had been on the team for two years. The unnamed student started to identify as a girl at the age of three.
Her mother claimed the removal of her daughter was a direct attempt to put her in danger.
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‘We kindly ask everyone to respect our family’s privacy, and to give our family the space we need to speak to our experience on our own terms and timeline.’
The student ‘presented’ as a female as early as pre-school, according to a 2021 lawsuit filed by the family.
‘She saw herself as a girl and conveyed that to her parents in clear terms. At five or six, her parents realized, based on —-’s behavior and statements, that their daughter was transgender.’
She also developed a love for soccer and competed with the girls throughout middle school, the lawsuit added.
‘At age 11, at the recommendation of her endocrinologist, she began hormone blockers to stop testosterone,’ it stated.
‘This year, under medical supervision, she began receiving estrogen, and will continue to do so for the rest of her life. This will allow her to live as the girl/woman that she is.’
Hundreds of Monarch High School students staged two walkouts in response to the staff members relocations.
They packed onto the football field as they waved signs in support of their peers and chanted ‘trans lives matter.’
DeSantis signed a law in 2021 excluding transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports teams in public schools.
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The statute says athletic teams or sports designated for females, women or girls are not open to male students.
It adds that ‘a statement of a student’s biological sex on the student’s official birth certificate is considered to have correctly stated the student’s biological sex at birth.’
More than 20 other states have similarly restrictive laws including Kansas, North Dakota and Wyoming.
*Original Article:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12857701/amp/trans-student-Florida-volleyball-team-ban-school-fine.html?ito=smartnews
