High school parents push back against PIAA’s ban on transgender athletes

Parents are pushing back against the PIAA’s ban on transgender athletes after capitulating to President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order. Advocates believe the PIAA is violating the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act and the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Parents of a transgender athlete from the Colonial School District in Montgomery County defended their child’s right to play sports at the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s (PIAA) board meeting on Tuesday after the organization approved a ban transgender students from playing school sports last month.

Advocates believe the ban runs afoul of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act and the Pennsylvania Constitution, which both ban discrimination based on sex and gender identity. 

The PIAA is the governing body that oversees interscholastic athletic competition for public and private schools across the commonwealth, and on Feb 19, the Board of Directors removed their “Transgender Policy” from their policy and procedures manual and changed their “Mixed Gender Participation” policies in order to be in compliance with an anti-trans executive over signed by President Donald Trump. 

“As a parent of a transgender female athlete, I’m here on her behalf and our family to share her journey and to share our journey as a family and a mother,” Sarah Hanson told the board members.

“My child struggled with her identity for years. It was a courageous event for her to tell me and the rest of the world who she is. Since 15, we’ve been on a journey for her to transition to the girl that she has always been.  This includes psychological evaluations, medical equipment and testing, and hours upon hours of therapy to work through this difficult time.”

Hanson was joined by her husband, Tom Hanson, and lawyers from the Education Law Center and the Women’s Law Project. 

The Hanson family submitted letters to the PIAA Board of Directors in support of their daughter, including two from  her track coaches at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, who called her “a remarkable athlete, a standout teammate and an exceptional human being.”

“The role of the PIAA should be to ensure that athletics remain a space of fairness, respect and opportunity for all students,” Jamar Jones, an assistant girls track coach at the high school, wrote in his letter. “Standing behind [her] means standing behind the values of equity, sportsmanship and integrity that we as coaches strive to instill in every athlete we mentor.”

Lawyers who joined the family at Wednesday’s meeting explained during the board meeting’s public comment that Trump’s anti-trans executive order does not carry weight in middle school or high school sports because they do not fall under the purview of the federal government.  

“In response to the PIAA’s public statements that the executive order from President Trump is binding on member schools, we wanted to make clear that the executive order is not binding on Pennsylvania schools, and that there is Pennsylvania legal protections post statutory and constitutional for transgender athletes to be able to participate in accordance with their gender identity,” Elizabeth Lester-Abdalla, an attorney with the Women’s Law Project, said in an interview. 

According to Lester-Abdalla, Trump’s executive order also runs afoul of protections from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate based on sex or gender identity, and the Pennsylvania constitution’s equal rights amendment.

“PIAA therefore has a statutory and a constitutional obligation under state law not to discriminate based on sex, including gender identity,” Lester-Abdalla stated. 

The PIAA declined to provide comment for this story.