For a transgender female gymnast in Palatine School District 211, being accepted means full access to athletic participation, including using the girls locker room.

Transgender students’ rights to access and gender conforming students’ rights to privacy seem to be in conflict.

Although not in national news, access to restrooms and locker rooms is an emerging topic at New Trier.

“Locker rooms are uncomfortable places for everyone” junior Marnina Hornstein said.
For some transgender students the discomfort increases: “Unfortunately, a transgender boy might face passing comments in the boys locker room,” junior Will Wolf said. “Not a lot of boys would be accepting; the locker room is not an ideal environment.”

According to the New York Times, school district officials in Palatine, IL, have tried to accommodate the transgender student’s request by creating several private changing spaces in the girls locker room.

While the Department of Education agreed with the school’s creation of the private changing spaces, they disagreed with the school’s requirement that the transgender girl be required to use one of the spaces.

In an article by the Chicago Tribune, John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Projects at ACLU of Illinois said, “It’s not voluntary, it’s mandatory for her. It’s one thing to say to all the girls, ‘You can choose if you want some extra privacy,’ but it’s another thing to say, ‘You, and you alone, must use them.’ That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she’s not accepted and the district does not see her as a girl.”

An issue at the center of this debate is student privacy. According to Palatine’s Superintendent, Daniel Cates, privacy for all students is their highest concern. Cates expressed this view in a quote to the Chicago Tribune, “At some point, we have to balance the privacy rights of 12,000 students with other particular, individual needs of another group of students.”

Access to the locker room is just one part to a more significant right to play sports with people of the gender with which students identify. The IHSA, the governing body for high school sports in Illinois, has created regulations regarding transgender students’ participation in athletics.

These regulations require transgender students to identify themselves as such to a school administrator, provide medical documentation regarding their transgender status, including counseling, hormone treatment, and gender reassignment surgery, and the policy requires identification of “gender identity related advantages for approved participation.”

One gender advantage would be if a transgender girl wished to compete on the Girls Track and Field team, as she may be faster than other runners.

The decision of whether or not a transgender student can participate in IHSA athletics is determined by the IHSA. According to the IHSA policy, “The IHSA will establish a group of medical personnel to act in an advisory role when reviewing rulings.”

“We have been called upon to think about this policy, but not to use it,” New Trier’s Athletic Director, Randy Oberembt, said.

Gender related advantages have been an issue in sports across all levels. At the 2009 World Championships for Women’s Track and Field, Caster Semenya, a runner from South Africa, was “forced to undergo a series of gender verification tests” by the IAAF (International Association of Athletic Federations) after winning the 800 meter dash.

These concerns likely play into the IHSA’s requirement that gender related advantages be considered as part of determining a transgender students’ eligibility to play.

“Personally, I think it would be a bigger issue for female sports, but it is going to affect all sports and everyone included,” New Trier Girls Track Coach Robert Spagnoli said.

In popular sports across the world, there are differences in men’s and women’s performances. The fastest national time for a 50 yard freestyle swimming event for men is 21.37 seconds by Nathan Adrian. For the same event, female swimmer Dana Torres holds the record with a time of 24.07 seconds.

“For sports it is unfortunate because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. They need to take in the situation of the fairness of the sport when determining if transgender students can play,” Wolf said.

For now, New Trier and surrounding school districts have yet to put the IHSA policy regarding transgender students into use, but it is on the administration’s radar. “We have to become more aware of the students who populate our institutions,” Oberembt said.

One common theme is respect for individual differences. Lizzy Appleby, the Pride Youth Program Coordinator at Angles in Northfield expressed this opinion: “Not every person who’s trans is the same, so their situation should not be treated as such.”
Transgender athletics article