The Manheim Township School Board tabled a discussion last week regarding transgender athletes in school sports despite passionate pleas from parents and other residents to study the issue.
During a four-hour long meeting on Oct. 13 in the Manheim Township High School auditorium, the board voted 6-3 to table talks until federal guidance on transgender students in athletics is issued. Board members Kim Romano and Michael Landis, along with Keither Kruger who introduced the resolution, voted against the motion to table.
The U.S. Department of Education in June shared proposed amendments to current Title IX policy, the federal law protecting students from discrimination based on sex in educational programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance.
According to the department, the proposed amendments would also protect LGBTQ students from discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics, but it said officials will conduct a separate rulemaking process to address Title IX’s authority over athletics.
Currently, Manheim Township’s athletics policy doesn’t mention transgender athletes, but the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association currently accepts decisions by school principals regarding a student’s gender.
Krueger, who has been asking the board to put the transgender discussion issue to a vote since August, was visibly upset when Board President Stephen Grosh made a motion to table the issue until the federal government’s decision on policy.
“This is not right, Steve,” Krueger said. “This is absolutely corrupt what you’re doing. You told me at the last meeting that we were going to have an up or down vote on this.”
Grosh said he had spoken with the district’s solicitor, Robert Frankhouser, about tabling the discussion, and he was advised he was permitted to do that at the meeting. Frankhouser previously advised the district against adopting a sex-based distinction in its athletics policy because of recent court cases and the potential Title IX amendments by the Education Department.
“I can read the tea leaves, and I think most people can as well,” Grosh said. “And those tea leaves are telling me, we are getting a lot more information on what these regulations are going to be. So, in my mind, it would make a lot of sense to table this motion until we know what exactly those regulations are.”
The Manheim Township School Board is the third board in Lancaster County to seek to examine and address transgender students’ participation in sports, following Conestoga Valley and Hempfield school districts. In July, Hempfield became the first school district in Pennsylvania to pass a policy limiting athletic participation to an athlete’s sex at birth.
Krueger said he sought to preemptively adopt a policy before a potential issue on an athletic team presents itself, causing more complications. But school board members Nikki Rivera, Janet Carroll and Joann Hentz opposed the plan, claiming any discussions of the transgender issue in sports was a waste of time and money.
“I want legal advice on how we can protect women in women’s sports, period,” Krueger said. “The board doesn’t have to follow that advice, but I want that advice.”
Community Comments
More than 100 people filled the high school auditorium as dozens of parents and other concerned citizens addressed the board for several hours, each speaker receiving five minutes to lay out their support or opposition to Krueger’s motion to discuss a transgender athletic policy. Most of the speakers last week supported Krueger’s motion.
Erica Rohrer, a mother of Manheim Township students and a former high school and collegiate athlete, said it was the protections of women’s sports in Title IX that allowed her to further her education. Rohrer said in the fall of 2000, she was a senior at Hempfield High School and a co-captain of the field hockey team.
Rohrer said her parents couldn’t afford to send her to college but, with a field hockey scholarship, she was able to attend college at Shippensburg University. She said a coach from Shippensburg was able to see her play in a high school all-star field hockey game that sealed the scholarship, a position she may have lost out on if boys were permitted to participate in girl’s athletics.
“Gender identity and sex contradict one another when a biological female like myself must compete against an athlete who has the body of a biological male,” Rohrer said. “The physiological differences between biological males and females are widely known and accepted. The results they produce in sports are indisputable…When a biological male who identifies as a female enters into a sport to compete against a biological female, it interferes with their life altering potential opportunities.”
Manheim Township resident Jeff Trimbath said he graduated from the high school in 1988, and his two oldest daughters played sports in school. He said it was from raising his girls that he wants to see “common sense measures” in place to “protect our daughters from biological males, especially in sports and locker rooms.”
Trimbath cited the case last year in the Loudon County Public Schools in Virginia in which a “gender fluid boy” who identified as a girl allegedly sexually assaulted two different girls in separate incidents in the girl’s bathroom. The school district was accused of covering up the assaults “because of his gender identity,” Trimbath said.
“Children have all kinds of ideas that they tell themselves, and many of them are rooted in lies that they had been told by uncaring parents, unsupportive friends or a corporate culture that sees them merely as customers and are predatory towards them,” Trimbath said. “The question that all of you have to ask on our board is, ‘Do you love our children?’ And if so, do you have the courage to tell them the truth, no matter the cost?”
Manheim Township resident Debbie Neal handed a petition to the board, which she said has 565 signatures of parents in favor of “fairness in women’s sports.” The petition stated, “We believe that all biological female students enrolled in the MTSD must be allowed to participate in sports without competing against, and without sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with biological males.”
“We all recognize the intrinsic value of each and every student, and we must find common ground that is fair and that recognizes the right of all students to succeed,” Neal said. “I believe that fairness, safety and privacy for the majority must not take a backseat to accommodate the same for a small minority. This is a difficult situation that deserves further transparent study.”
Adam Hosey, a Manheim Township resident and parent in the district, said current students were asked to speak out against the proposed study, but that parents were told they “did not want to stare down and face and hear the rhetoric in this room that denies their fundamental humanity.”
“Much of the rhetoric tonight has been fundamentally about denying the humanity of our students,” Hosey said. “Trans girls are girls, and trans boys are boys. To say otherwise is to deny their humanity.”
Dahlia Wolfe, a senior at Manheim Township who said she is an “identifying person,” urged the board to vote down the study because of potential biases among the board members.
“The job of the school board is to rise above the bias of the common district member and care for the safety and well-being of students at Manheim Township,” Wolfe said. “Bringing your own religious beliefs or convictions into this debate is unprofessional and, frankly, disappointing. This is not a religious issue. This is a debate about the legitimacy of trans people, and I personally find that disgusting.”
Staff writer Michael Yoder is an award-winning journalist who has been honored with several Keystone Press Awards for his investigative pieces.
