A Vermont high school has been sanctioned by the Vermont Principals' Association after the girls basketball team opted out of facing an opponent with a transgender player.
Mid Vermont Christian was declared ineligible from future tournaments in all sports.
The Eagles forfeited out of the Division IV girls basketball tournament after refusing to play a Feb. 21 game against Long Trail, which has a transgender player on its roster. No other team on Long Trail's schedule forfeited against the Mountain Lions, who finished 14-6.
Vermont law allows transgender female students to play on girls sports teams. The Vermont Principals' Association met Monday after handing down the ban, saying "the school's actions do not meet the expectations of the VPA's 1st and 2nd policy, Commitment to Racial, Gender-Fair, and Disability Awareness and Policy of Gender Identity, respectively. Thus, Mid-Vermont Christian school is ineligible to participate in VPA activities going forward."
Its bylaws include a clause stating: "The prohibition against discrimination includes discrimination based on a student's actual or perceived sex and gender. Gender includes a person's actual or perceived sex as well as gender identity and expression."
"We believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players," Mid Vermont Christian head of school Vicky Fogg
wrote in an email to the Valley News at the time of the forfeit. "Allowing biological males to participate in women's sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women's sports in general."
In order to receive public tuition funding Vermont schools were required to sign a statement confirming they would follow the state's anti-discrimination laws. Last year, Fogg wrote that if the education rules "conflict with any of the school's beliefs, including on marriage and sexuality" it would not adhere to that part of the Vermont law.
