Another state is cracking down on LGBT ideology.
The Alaska Board of Education on Thursday voted in approval of a proposal that prohibits boys in the state from competing on high school girls’ sports teams.
Mainstream media outlets such as The Hill spun the news as Alaska officials banning “transgender” girls from participating in girls’ sports.
The new rule declares that “if a separate high school athletics team is established for female students, participation shall be limited to females who were assigned female at birth.”
The board asserted that the move is important to ensure high school sports remain fair for girls. Republicans are now claiming victory, as the policy is in line with the priorities of GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy, whose effort to accomplish such a change was defeated in the state Legislature earlier this year.
The rule is intended to apply to schools and districts belonging to the Alaska School Activities Association (ASAA), which is the Last Frontier’s body for regulating high school sports. Final approval, however, must still be given by Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, who is a Republican.
Currently, the ASAA’s guidelines allow each school to decide for itself whether it will allow students to join teams intended for athletes of the opposite sex. Under that system, a student athlete whom a school deems eligible to compete as the opposite sex shall remain eligible to do so “for the duration of the student’s high school eligibility,” while transgender students at schools lacking written policies on the matter “may only participate based upon [their] gender assigned at birth.”
The proposal for the new guidelines was originally brought forward in June. The members of the board, like AG Taylor, were appointed by Gov. Dunleavy.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alaska blasted the Board of Education’s decision. The organization’s advocacy director, Michael Garvey, said: “The Board has totally disregarded the ways this policy violates the privacy of young Alaskans, and sanctions wholesale discrimination against transgender children.”
“The decision to approve this proposal is a direct attack on Alaskan students who simply want to play sports, like any other kid,” Garvey added.
The Hill further reported of the lead-up to the board’s adoption of the new proposal:
A bill to require public and private schools to designate athletic teams based on students’ sex assigned at birth was introduced this session by Republicans in the state Legislature but failed to advance out of committee. Another bill introduced by Dunleavy would have prevented transgender students from using restrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.
Dunleavy last year called on the state Legislature to pass a law barring transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams. In a post last year on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Dunleavy said allowing transgender girls to compete on girls’ sports teams was deteriorating fairness in women’s sports.
The news from Alaska is the latest in a recent trend of policies across the country, primarily in Republican-leaning states, to limit LGBT ideology, particularly the degree to which children are exposed to it.
As noted by NBC News, 17 states have enacted more than 30 LGBT-related education laws this year, which impact the 2023-2024 school year. These include laws that restrict discussion of LGBT issues, allow reviews to prevent the presence of sexually explicit materials on school campuses, ban students from engaging in sports teams belonging to the opposite sex under the guise of “transgenderism,” and ban educators from using student pronouns that do not align with students’ biological sex.
Such laws are opposed by the teachers unions, including the National Education Association — the largest labor union in the country.
“We are in a moment where our students are under assault, teachers and other educators are under assault, parents are under assault,” NEA president Becky Pringle told NBC News. “People are afraid. They’re afraid for their livelihood. They’re afraid for their lives.”
The policy trend goes hand-in-hand with polling suggesting that a growing number of Americans reject the notion of gender fluidity. According to a survey by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist, 61 percent of Americans hold the view that “defining gender as the sex listed on a person’s original birth certificate is the only way to define male and female in society.” This number is up 10 percent from May 2022.
Last year, 42 percent of those who took the survey said they believe the “definition of gender is antiquated and needs to be updated to include identity.” That number fell to just 36 percent in the latest poll.
Simultaneous to the pushback against transgenderism is the rise of state restrictions on abortion since Roe v. Wade was repealed. Some communities are even pushing for legislation to make it illegal for people to use their roads to travel to get an abortion.
All of this suggests that, despite the picture often painted by the mainstream media, there has been a notable cultural shift toward traditional and biblically based morality.
