Conn City Rules on Trans Student Athletes

The Middletown, Conn., board of education adopted a policy last week to address transgender athletes' participation in school sports.

Based on Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference rules, the policy states that a student athlete will compete in the sex on his or her birth certificate unless he or she has undergone sex reassignment.

A student athlete who has undergone sex reassignment may compete if the reassignment was completed before puberty. If reassignment was completed after puberty, then students can compete only if anatomical changes are complete, governmental agencies such as the Department of Motor Vehicles recognize the change, and hormonel therapy has been administered to minimize gender-related sports advantages, according to the policy.

A student athlete who has undergone a sex reassignment after puberty will also have to wait two years after the surgery before participating.

Board of education chairman Theodore Raczka called the adoption of this policy and others "housekeeping" in an interview with The Middletown Press.

Board member Renee Johnson-Thornton, who cast the only vote against the policy, said she thought requiring students to wait two years after surgery to participate in interscholastic sports would exclude students who had undergone sex reassignment from participating altogether.