Last week, Erin Matson, executive director of abortion rights group Reproaction, shared a photo on Twitter of an affidavit required by Woodall Public Schools.
“This has nothing to do with encouraging girls to be athletes,” Matson tweeted. “This is totalitarianism. It is the white nationalist agenda. The anti-LGBTQ agenda. The anti-abortion agenda. It is all the same agenda.”
Do you understand what is happening?
This has nothing to do with encouraging girls to be athletes.
This is totalitarianism. It is the white nationalist agenda. The anti-LGBTQ agenda. The anti-abortion agenda. It is all the same agenda.
This is real. Shared with permission. pic.twitter.com/CGZ1SN5jr2
— Erin Matson (@erintothemax) July 28, 2022
Oklahoma public schools now require students to provide a notarized affidavit attesting to their biological sex in order to participate in sports. The policy applies to all public schools, from kindergarten through college.
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The policy comes after Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) signed a bill in March banning transgender women and girls from participating in women’s and girl’s school sports teams. The “Save Women’s Sports Act” requires parents to sign an affidavit that states the sex assigned at birth to their child as a prerequisite to participating in school sports. The law also allows the families of cisgender student-athletes to sue school districts if they are forced to compete against all girls instead of just cisgender girls.
NBC News reports that Woodall Public Schools superintendent Ginger Kinght confirmed that the district is required by state law to have student athletes complete the form. Other Oklahoma public schools have created forms of their own.
After Matson’s tweet went viral, many criticized the policy.
The State is telling parents of kids who want to participate in sports that they have to attest to the shape of their kid's genitals.
It's also a reproductive registry at the elementary school level.
This is all so wrong on so many levels.
— Frances_Larina (@Frances_Larina) July 29, 2022
With a notary requirement – this is not ONLY incredibly transphobic, but is going to have the impact of preventing lower socioeconomic status kids from participating https://t.co/udArXxbfqP
— Huffle🏳️⚧️ (she/her) (@Ms_Huffle) July 29, 2022
This school requires a birth certificate to enroll and Oklahoma has explicitly banned gender neutral birth certificates, so clearly this is an unnecessary rule (as if it ever could be necessary) to shame anyone who is gender nonconforming.https://t.co/aYjrqM1r6j pic.twitter.com/Yk47uDPn8a
— Tiffany Miller (@tiffbmiller) July 29, 2022
Oklahoma is one of 18 states to pass bans on transgender girls’ participation in school sports in a recent wave of anti-transgender legislation, but it is the only one so far to require an affidavit for all student athletes. Proponents of such bans argue that transgender women and girls possess unfair advantages over cisgender women and their participation threatens women’s and girls’ sports.
In June, the Biden Administration proposed changes to the legal interpretation of Title IX which would help prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The proposed changes mostly undo rollbacks of Title IX rights during the Trump administration. While the changes don’t explicitly prohibit policies that ban transgender people from sports teams, bathrooms, and locker rooms, the Department of Education said it will release a separate notice of proposed rulemaking to address those issues soon.
