The Florida High School Athletics Association will no longer ask female student-athletes about their menstrual cycles on state-mandated athlete medical forms, the sports governing body announced Thursday.
FHSAA, in an emergency meeting Thursday, voted to remove questions about the menstrual cycles of female student-athletes from the state’s athletic medical forms. The board had recently taken steps to make the previously optional questions mandatory.
“The concerns of student-athletes, parents … and other stakeholders have been carefully and respectfully heard,” the association said in a statement. “The FHSAA shares in the concern and belief that our student-athletes deserve privacy through their health, safety, and well-being. This change addresses concerns of students and parents’ disapproval of the sharing of a female’s menstrual cycle, as well as medical information being viewed by non-healthcare providers at FHSAA member schools, while ensuring that the on-site health care provider can provide necessary care for our student-athletes as suggested by the [sports medicine advisory committee].”
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The association’s plan to make the questions mandatory provided fodder for Democratic Party politicians and liberal activists who attempted to tie the plan to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) despite the proposal not originating from the governor’s office.
A number of professional medical associations have said that questions about a student-athlete’s menstrual history are “essential” for evaluating the health of those athletes. The national guidelines for sports health evaluation, developed by groups including the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics, say changes in an athlete’s menstrual cycle could signal “low energy availability, pregnancy, or other gynecologic or medical conditions” that could be essential to determining a student-athlete’s physical health, according to the Associated Press.
The attempt to make the questions about a student-athlete’s menstrual cycle mandatory prompted a group of House Democrats to introduce legislation Thursday that would prohibit federal funding from going to schools that ask students about their menstrual history.
Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) cited efforts in school districts and states to require students to disclose their menstrual cycle history. The trio of lawmakers said the requirements are “efforts by Republicans to track students’ menstrual cycles” and that it had been put forward “most prominently by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.” The group also cited Colorado, where Democrats control all facets of government.
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“Mandating students turn over their private medical data is a massive and invasive overreach, one that Republican governors and legislatures have proposed as part of their ongoing efforts to dehumanize trans individuals. There is absolutely no reason — none — that elected officials and the government should have access to the specific details of a student’s menstrual cycles, even more so when they are a minor. We must put an end to this macabre proposal from Ron DeSantis and others and protect students’ privacy and medical autonomy,” Schiff said.
