What Would You Do? Advice needed, delicate situation

Parent Cafe
21

So taking supplements is allowed if transitioning but not if just swimming? Must be quite complicated figuring out who can take what drugs when.

22

@Sybylla Yes this is very much a real situation. The family has just decided to begin the transition and this is most likely one of the first “problems” they have confronted and to be honest I don’t know that they see the underlying issue. We discussed, given the beginning transition, which gender team were they considering, as the seasons are different times of the year. The answer was “we don’t know yet”. This is very much in the planning stage for them and as I said before I just want to have all possible scenarios/decisions accounted for before they come up.

My team, for freshmen is open to anyone as diving is a small age group sport so very few come in as freshmen with any experience so this athlete will not be significantly behind anyone else in terms of ability, as time goes on though who knows.

I love the USA Swimming advice previously posted but as those involved know NFHS rarely follows other organizations and likes to make their rules their own so while helpful that may not be taken into consideration. My son had a teammate (same school) this spring in gymnastics that is making the same transition. The uniform top would have been problematic however in that sport a T shirt under the leotard is acceptable. Unfortunately swimming and diving are very strict in suit requirements and while it would be easy to use a female suit that is compliant a male suit could never be compliant and a rash guard type of top would not be compliant and would also hinder the athlete in many circumstances.

I also agree this should be out of the coaches responsibility but I also know, from past situations, my AD is not the most forward thinking, get out in front of it type of guy, especially outside of the traditional sports (football, baseball, basketball). I have learned I need to present him with all of the problems/solutions and my recommendations and then he will go with my suggestions, I now just have to come up with what those will be.

23

The bathing suit restriction is information the family needs. It might influence their decision as to which team the student competes on.

ETA: This might eliminate any problem for you.

24

Thanks for being such a thoughtful and caring coach!

25

Does your state’s high school athletic association provide any guidance? As I recall, my state’s HSAA had documented policies regarding transgender athletes, and these documents were available on their website. I would start there. Also, you might get some help by contacting your state’s HSAA. There is a good chance that a similar situation has occurred at another school.

26

NFHS pages on the subject:
https://www.nfhs.org/articles/developing-policies-for-transgender-students-on-high-school-teams/
https://www.nfhs.org/articles/transgender-students-participation-in-school-sports-access-to-facilities/
http://www.nfhs.org/media/1018860/wksp-19.pdf

Another page on varying state policies with respect to transgender K-12 athletes:
https://www.transathlete.com/k-12
This page has the following link for Iowa:
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/2bc3fc_91f9ff3782524605a4a684e0a669cde0.pdf

27

Thanks ucbalumnus that is helpful. I somewhat wish we were in Iowa as it would make this less of a problem. Iowa still seems to be a bit backward as there are separate state associations for girls sports and boys sports and diving is not offered for boys but is for girls, it would make this situation a mute point.

Thanks to your links I was able to find the policies for Illinois and it looks like this will not be much of an issue for me, at least this year. Illinois requires medical records detailing hormone treatments among other things. Given this individual is just beginning the transition process it would appear that by fall this process will either not have begun or just started so he would qualify to compete as a female and then would most likely be able to submit the needed paperwork for his sophomore year to compete as a male. It does state that uniform requirements are based on gender identity so the swim suit may still be an issue but most likely after a year of hormone treatment will not be an issue. Either way this looks to give him a year to figure it out and make the decision if diving is the right sport for him.

Thanks to all.