Update on the SDHSAA Transgender Policy

Dear Friend,

As most of you know, because of a recent email alert that you received from me, the South Dakota High School Activities Association (SDHSAA) Board heard both proponent and opponent testimony regarding their newly implemented transgender policy at their annual meeting on Tuesday, April 21st in Pierre SD.

Needless to say, it was a long day, but in the end, twelve opponents of the policy (three state representatives, one state senator, Linda Schauer, CWA State Director, Dale Bartcher, FHA Executive Director, myself and five others) gave compelling arguments for rescinding the policy.  I have included my full testimony below.

In fact, as I sat and listened to our “team members” present their oral arguments as to why the board should give serious consideration to rescind the policy, I found myself thanking God for allowing me to be a part of this amazing group that he assembled. Needless to say, I was very humbled.

President
South Dakota Family Policy Council

SDHSAA Board Meeting
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Riggs High School Theater
Pierre SD

I want to begin by stating that it is the desire of every person in this room to see that every high school student that wants to participate in a high school athletic activity, of some sort, should have the opportunity to do so.  But creating a policy that seeks “to designate a set of criteria in which student-athletes are able to compete on a level playing field in a safe, competitive and friendly environment, free of discrimination” for students who are confused about their gender identity will fail and may even cause more harm.

The first thing that needs to be understood is that there is a difference between a transsexual and transgender.  A transsexual is a person who has already gone through or is in the process of physiologically changing from a male to a female or a female to a male.  This process involves two years of intense hormone therapy followed by, but not in all cases, a sex change surgery.

Why is this important to know?  Because two years of hormone therapy would most certainly ‘level the playing field’ and make competing with and against those who “used to be” the opposite sex ‘safe, and competitive.’  But in our state, it is not legal for a teenager, who is confused about his or her gender identity, to begin this process.

And here-in lays one of the major problems with the current SDHSAA Transgender policy.  A boy, who deeply feels that he is a girl, is still anatomically a boy with large doses of testosterone flowing through his body.  Hence, allowing a boy, who deeply feels that he is a girl, to compete in athletics outside of their birth certificate gender identity,does not level the playing field, nor will it make it more safe and competitive.

Example: Club Soccer Friendlies – Boys v. Girls up until only U14.

Second, it is our contention, that in the current world of bullying in our schools today, even with all the wonderful efforts that have gone into trying to prevent or stop it, a boy or girl, who claims to be a transgender and attempts to participate in athletics, outside of their identified birth certificate sex, will not experience a safe and friendly environment, that is free of discrimination.  On the contrary, they will more than likely open themselves up to being teased, ridiculed and bullied.  And no amount of “sensitivity” training will stop this.

Third, former psychiatrist-in-chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital and a former proponent of transgender and transsexualism, Dr. Paul McHugh, concluded his June 12, 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed, on transgenderism, by noting that when children who reportedtransgender feelings were tracked at both Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic, 70-80 percent of them spontaneously lost those feelings.

Sheila Jefferys, author of Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism calls this “The phenomenon of regret that undermines the idea that there exists a particular kind of person who is genuinely and essentially transgender and can be identified accurately by psychiatrists.”  She cites the case of Bradley Cooper, who, in 2011, at the age of seventeen, became Britain’s youngest transsexual patient.  However, one year later he regretted his decision and ended his hormonal treatments and returned to living as a boy.

In the July 14, 2014 issue of the Feminist Times, Camille Paglia, a self-described ‘Amazon Feminist,’ stated, “I am concerned about the current climate, inflamed by half-baked post-modernist gender theory that convinces young people who may have other unresolved personal or family issues that [they might be transgender].”

Teenagers live in a world of emotional roller coasters that lead to much internal confusion about many issues in their lives, and for some, confusion about their sexual identity.  However, creating a policy that only reinforces and affirms the emotional confusion of a teenage boy or girl is not helpful, safe nor friendly, but rather harmful.  In the words of Dr. Paul McHugh, “…policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by NOT treating transgender confusions…as a mental disorder that deserves compassionate understanding, treatment and prevention.”

With this in mind, I sincerely ask you to rescind this policy.

Thank you,
Mark Chase
President
South Dakota Family Policy Council

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Similar Posts:

• Transgenderism in Schools Again Affirmed by SD ‘Republicans’
• Republican Legislature Upholds Transgender Agenda in Schools
• South Dakota Legislative Billwatch, March 3, 2015
• High School Rule-makers Endanger Female Athletes
• Fourth Attempt to Rescind Pro-Transgender School Policy on Life Support

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