Florida weighs in mandatory menstrual cycle details for female athletes

CLAIM: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is requiring all female student athletes in the state to provide details of their periods in order to participate in organized sports.

AP SCORE: False. The Florida High School Athletic Association is considering an advisory committee’s recommendations, but no final decision has yet been made. The DeSantis commissioner for education is a member of the association’s board of directors, and the commissioner also appoints three others, but the association is a private non-profit organization and not a government agency run by the governor’s office.

FACTS: Social media users speculate that the conservative Republican governor, who has been an outspoken critic of transgender athletes, is once again using sports to stir up controversy as he looks to run for president in 2024.

“TIME: Ron DeSantis wants student-athletes to provide information about the menstrual cycle. THIS IS MADNESS!” wrote one Twitter user.

Ron DeSantis: The government has no right to order federal employees to wear masks. Also Ron DeSantis: “The government has every right to know when every high school girl is menstruating,” wrote another Twitter user in a post that has been liked or shared over 3,000 times as of Friday. “Ron DeSantis is the epitome of hypocrisy and a real scoundrel!”

But the proposed mandate did not receive final approval and was not developed by the DeSantis office.

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Florida is currently asking schoolgirl athletes to provide information about their menstrual cycle on health forms required for sports, but this is not required.

Ryan Harrison, a spokesman for the association, confirmed that the new guidelines were developed by its sports medicine advisory committee and approved at the end of January. Now it will be considered by the board of directors of the association at the next meeting in Gainesville on February 26-27.

The association is recognized as the official state governing body for interscholastic sports. Its board includes a representative from the office of state commissioner of education, Manny Diaz, who was appointed by DeSantis. Diaz also selects three other 16-member board members.

The offices of DeSantis and Diaz did not respond to emails asking for comment this week, but Harrison stressed that the proposed changes are not a response to concerns about transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, as some social media users claim.

“There is absolutely no support for the argument that their recommendation is to appeal to a specific group of people,” he wrote in an email.

The current Sports Association Physical Assessment Preliminary Form, which must be completed by the student and their physician and kept on file at their school, asks female athletes five questions about their periods, but all are listed as optional.

Questions that association officials say have been in shape for at least two decades include when a student had her first menstrual period, when was her last period, how long does the interval between their periods usually last, how many last year and the longest interval between periods last year.

The proposed amendments to the form include four mandatory questions about menstruation, including whether the student menstruated, at what age they had their first period, the date of their last period, and how many periods she had in the last year. .

Robert Sefchik, a member of the sports medicine advisory committee, said the introduction of mandatory rather than optional questions about the menstrual cycle is in line with the national guidelines for sports medical screening developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Sports. Medicine and other groups.

He said having the form, which has been reviewed and published by national organizations, provides an “extremely reliable resource” for physicians conducting physical examinations.

“We appreciate the medical necessity of the questions, including menstrual history, that are included on this form and support their inclusion on the form,” Sefcik, who was the committee’s previous chair and voted in favor of the recommendations, wrote in an email.

National guidelines state that menstrual history is “an important issue for female athletes” because menstrual irregularities can be a sign of “low energy availability, pregnancy, or other gynecological or medical conditions.”

“Menstrual dysfunction is 2–3 times more common in athletes than non-athletes, and 10–15% of female athletes experience amenorrhea (loss of the menstrual cycle) or oligomenorrhea (reduction in the number of menstrual cycles per year),” the guide says. “Amenorrhoea is more common in athletes who participate in sports that emphasize leanness, such as running, gymnastics, cheerleading, dance, and figure skating.”

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This is part of AP’s efforts to combat widespread misinformation, including working with third-party companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact checking at the AP website.

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