•  PIERRE - The South Dakota High School Activities Association passed the first reading of a policy dealing with transgender athletes at its meeting Tuesday in Pierre.
•  "It's been a long time in the making," said SDHSAA Executive Director Wayne Carney. The policy presented to the board took its direction from policies approved in other states.
•  "There's not a lot of case law, but it's coming," said SDHSAA Assistant Executive Director James Weaver who noted that the policy would help the board avoid a discrimination lawsuit.
•  The policy defines a transgender person as a person whose gender identity does not match the sex assigned to him or her at birth.
•  The policy establishes a procedure for schools and the SDHSAA board to follow when a transgender student declares an interest in an athletic activity. The final determination about whether or not the transgender student would be allowed to compete would be made by the Gender Identification Eligibility Committee made up of a physician familiar with gender identity health care, a mental health professional and an advocate familiar with gender identity issues and expression issues.
•  "Right now we have those kids in the state of South Dakota," said Assistant Executive Director John Krogstrand. Without a policy "that puts us basically in an indefensible position."
•  Some schools originally adopted the policy used at the college level by the NCAA. That policy states that to be eligible, a transgender athlete must have a sex change operation.
•  "Everyone's running away from those policies," said Assistant Executive Director James Weaver, explaining that students under 18 couldn't be forced to comply with those rules.
•  The fact that transgender high school students were only called on to declare their allegiance to a new gender bothered board member Dan Whalen of Pierre.
•  "They're not committing to be a transgender person," Whalen said. "I have a huge problem with that."
•  Board members expressed concern about a scenario that included a male transgender student dominating a girls' sport.

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