Utah parents file complaint against first-place winner, claiming she's transgender

In an expected outcome to Utah’s law banning transgender girls from competing in school sports, parents of girls who got second and third place in a sporting event filed complaints to have the firstplace winner investigated for her gender.

David Spatafore, the legislative representative of the Utah High School Activities Association, addressed the Utah Legislature’s Education Interim Committee and said that a girl won first place at a state-level sports event and “clearly outclassed the rest of the teams. Second and third [place] were significantly below.” The parents made the complaint that day.

Spatafore said the association — without informing the student or family members about the inquiry — asked the student’s school to investigate.

The school investigated the students’ enrollment records. “The school went back to kindergarten, and she’d always been a female,” he said.

Spatafore said the association has received other complaints saying “that female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough.” He said UHSAA investigated all of them.

He said neither the girls nor the parents were made aware of the complaints or the investigation.

LGBTQ advocates have warned for years that transgender sports bans could be used by the families of losing student-athletes to attack winners. Some states, like Idaho, require genital examinations in their sports bans. Such requirements would have subjected the student under investigation to an unnecessary and invasive examination.

Utah passed its transgender sports ban earlier this year, and these cases are among the first to test the law.

Spatafore said that school records are enough to satisfy the law’s requirements “because if all of the questions about eligibility were answered by the school or the feeder system schools, there was no reason to make it a personal situation with a family or that athlete.”

Spatafore said that UHSAA is trying to follow the new ban.

“Quite frankly, this is new ground for us,” he testified. “I’m not going to say that we have it down pat, because I have no clue. I don’t think any of us in the office have a clue if we have it down pat. What we want to do is we just want to try to do our job.”

The Utah state legislature pushed through the transgender sports ban, H.B. 11, earlier this year in the session’s final hours. Republican Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed the bill, saying it “will likely bankrupt the Utah High School Athletic Association and result in millions of dollars in legal fees for local school districts.” The legislature went into a special session to override his veto.

In June, the families of two transgender girls in the state filed a lawsuit challenging the sports ban, arguing that the bill was “based on unfounded stereotypes, fears, and misconceptions about girls who are transgender. It is not supported by medical or scientific evidence.”

The state motioned to dismiss the lawsuit, which the judge denied earlier this month. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction on the law being enforced and the court has not yet ruled on that. “We expect a decision any day now [on the injuntion],” Michael Curtis of the Utah Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel testified.

If an injunction is granted, a second part of the law goes into effect, which requires a transgender student to get permission to play on a girl’s team. The consent would be granted or denied based on medical history, care or treatment, and other evidence of” sincerity” of the student’s gender identity.

Curtis also noted other questions have arisen since the law was enacted on July 1.

First is the question of whether private schools are included in the law. The law states, “a student of the male sex may not compete, and a public school or LEA may not allow a student of the male sex to compete with a team designated for students of the female sex in an interscholastic athletic activity.”

The term “student” is left undefined in the language of the law, leaving it unclear if a private school must enforce the ban.

Another question Curtis addressed was the stated policies of UHSAA for the 2022–23 school year, which appear to conflict with the state law:

“With the consent of parents or a legal guardian, a student shall be permitted to participate on a gender specific sports team that is consistent with the public gender identity of that student for all other purposes. In deciding eligibility, the UHSAA will first refer to the confirmation of the student and his or her local school regarding gender identification. The UHSAA will require that member school districts and schools make a determination of a student’s eligibility to participate in gender specific sports team for a particular season based on the gender identification of that student (1) in current school records, and, (2) daily life activities in the school and community at the time that sports eligibility is determined.” “A male to female transgender student athlete who is taking a medically prescribed hormone treatment under a physician’s care for the purpose of gender transition may participate on a boys team at any time, but must complete one year of hormone treatment related to the gender transition before competing on a girls team.” Curtis explained that UHSAA is not a state organization, though it is under certain state regulations. “As a private entity, they can have whatever policies they want to have,” he said. “The concern is presenting confusion by presenting the policies to students and parents when in reality the state law governs the interaction between the school and the team and the student differently.”

Spatafore testified that UHSAA knows and accepts that its policies are subservient to Utah law. He said the organization left its policy intact because they were unsure if a court would rule on the separate parts of the law before the school year.

He further said that the vast majority of students were cisgender and that should any transgender student-athlete apply to participate, they would be notified before the school year of where state law was at that time.

“To this day, we haven’t had a transgender student make an application through the system,” he said.

Rep. Kera Birkeland testified of her “frustration” with UHSAA’s policies.

“As of July 1, [HB11] is the law,” she said. “It takes a lot of time and effort to create a law. I spent two years working on this legislation. And then to hear that, well, a judge might enjoin it … it undermines our process of trying to create legislation and laws to properly govern the people that have elected us.”