High School Sports Team Rethinks Menstrual Cycle Issues

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Facing backlash, the director of Florida’s high school athletics governing body is refusing to use an eligibility form that requires female athletes to disclose their menstrual history in order to compete.

Instead, the executive director of the Florida High School Athletic Association recommends that much of the personal information disclosed on medical history forms remain in the doctor’s office rather than being stored at the school.

On Thursday, the association’s board will hold an emergency meeting to vote on the adoption of a four-page form that will remove questions that force student athletes to share details about their menstrual cycles in order to exercise.

Many other states require or require female athletes to include information about their menstrual cycles with other health information.

A spokesman for the Florida association said the proposed changes were not a response to concerns about transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, as some social media users claim.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation in 2021 banning transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams designed for student-athletes identified as girls at birth, placing DeSantis and the state in a national cultural debate about transgender rights.

Under a new Florida recommendation, additional questions about mental health, alcohol and drug use, and family medical history will remain answered in the offices of the medical practitioner who performed the physical examination.

An earlier version of the form, which included mandatory questions about female students’ menstrual history, was recommended by the association’s advisory committee. Committee members said the introduction of mandatory rather than optional questions about the menstrual cycle is in line with the national guidelines for sports medical examination developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Sports Medicine and other groups.

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

However, an earlier version of the form “raised concerns and questions from parents, school district administrators, school board members, and coaches regarding the health privacy of student-athletes,” according to the Florida Association’s board meeting agenda Thursday.

“Therefore, this recommendation provides an appropriate medical history to a qualified medical practitioner and gives schools the medical clearance needed to participate in athletic competition while protecting the student-athlete’s privacy,” the agenda item says.

Thursday’s meeting came after a group of Democratic state lawmakers this week sent a letter to the association’s president, John Gerdes, calling the reporting requirements in the previously proposed form “highly invasive.” The letter stated, “No girl should be forced to reveal her bodily functions to anyone who is not her mother, father, guardian, or physician.”

State lawmakers said they were concerned that if schools had the information, a coach or athletic director would be able to access it. In the current form, such questions are optional, but optional; in the revised form under consideration, they will be abolished.

“There is absolutely no reason for the FHSAA to collect such personal information and no reason for schools to need it,” the lawmakers said in the letter.

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