Manhattan’s largest neighborhood school board district passed a resolution Wednesday night that could put the city’s policy allowing males to compete in female sports on the chopping block.
In an 8-3 vote, the Community Education Council District 2, which includes the Lower East Side to the Upper East Side, approved a measure demanding that the city’s Department of Education allow a public review and redrafting of its guidelines around trans participation in school sports. The vote followed a heated meeting attended by city council members, district parents, and transgender-identifying female actress Elliot Page.
School-board members Maud Maron, Allyson Bowen, Sabena Serinese, and Len Silverman co-sponsored the resolution. The measure demands that New York City Public Schools convene a committee comprised of female athletes, parents, coaches, relevant medical professionals and evolutionary biology experts to discuss a revised policy. That committee would be authorized to propose amendments, changes, and additions to the current gender guidelines via an “inclusive, evidence-based process concerning the impact on female athletes when the category of sex is replaced by gender identity.”
Maron argued Wednesday that the guidelines could be preserved in their current form if the committee determines them adequate after considering possible adverse impact on female athletes.
“If we have a proper and real conversation, one of the outcomes could be that nothing changes and that we all discover that these guidelines are just perfect as they are,” Maron said. “But another one of the possibilities is that we realize that the excluded voices had something really important to offer and they should have been heard from in the beginning.”
Maron describes herself on X as an “unapologetic old-school liberal” and “happy warrior for high quality public education & parents’ rights.” She ran for Congress last year on a platform of restricting male participation in women’s sports.
“At New York City Public Schools, all students have the right to have their gender, gender identity, and gender expression recognized and respected,” DOE spokesperson Chyann Tull told Politico in a statement. “In our schools, every student can participate in sports and competitive athletics in accordance with their gender identity, and we prohibit any exclusion of students based on their gender identity or expression.”
NYC Council member Erik Bottcher blasted the resolution as discriminatory targeting of trans kids. The measure does not ban boys in girls’ school athletics but merely allows the community to revisit the established policy.
“We are outraged that you’re considering a resolution targeting transgender girls and sports,” he said, according to the New York Post. ” It is utterly shocking that such a regressive and harmful resolution is being proposed in the school district in the middle of Manhattan.”
In 2019, the NYC DOE released the guidance, replacing the category of biological sex with gender identity in Public School Athletic League (PSAL) sports teams and participation.
The policy stipulated that, “Generally, a student must be permitted to participate in physical education, intramural sports, and competitive athletic activities and contact sports in accordance with the student’s gender identity asserted at school.”
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article suggested that the school-board vote would compel the city council to reevaluate its trans sports policy. In fact, the city council has the discretion to submit to the review or ignore the resolution.