Florida should stop asking high school athletes menstrual questions

The Florida High School Athletic Association scrapped the questions Thursday after listening to a spate of complaints contained in letters read during an emergency board meeting.

Answering the questions was previously optional, but was recently recommended as mandatory by an association advisory board, sparking a firestorm of criticism.

Some called the questions “humiliating” and “invasive,” and others suggested they were linked to a recent bill banning transgender girls and women from playing on public school teams designed for athletes, who were identified as girls at birth.

“It’s another way to shame girls,” Connie DeWitt wrote in a letter.

dr Deborah White wrote that there was “zero” reason for a school to know anything about a student’s menstrual history.

“The only reason is to weed out transgender kids who may not be having periods,” White’s letter reads. “As a doctor, I would never fill out this form.”

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the law into law in 2021, pushing the state into the national cultural debate on transgender rights. It’s widely believed that DeSantis is considering a presidential bid next year on a deeply conservative platform.

The federation’s spokesman said the proposed changes are not a response to concerns about transgender athletes competing in women’s sport, as some social media users have claimed. And association president John Gerdes emphasized that politics played no role in the discussions, although the newly adopted form calls for “gender assigned at birth”.

“This governor and his office had nothing to do with it,” said Gerdes on Thursday.

Many other states ask or require female athletes to include details of their menstrual cycle with other health information.

The four-page form approved by the board will continue to include questions about mental health, alcohol and drug use and family medical history, but the answers remain in the offices of the health practitioners who conduct the students’ medical evaluations. Schools only receive the page explaining a student’s medical eligibility.

The association’s medical advisory board, which recommended that the board make menstrual histories mandatory on the form, said it follows national guidelines for exercise physics developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Physicians Sports medicine and other groups.

The guidelines state that menstrual history is an “essential discussion for female athletes” because abnormalities of the period could be a sign of “low energy availability, pregnancy, or other gynecological or medical problems.”

The chair-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness told The Associated Press on Thursday that the earlier Florida proposal was inconsistent with its guidelines because the academy only recommended sending a medical eligibility form to the school, not the school personal medical information.

“And we recognize that’s very problematic,” said Rebecca Carl, associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University. “These were not intended to be shared with the schools.”

Two of the board members who voted against removing the questions entirely said there was no reason why menstrual information couldn’t continue to be included on the forms and kept in doctors’ offices.

Athletic aptitude assessments are the only opportunity some students have to meet with healthcare providers, and the questions on the form can help identify medical issues, Board Member Chris Patricca said.

“Physical students are safer and better protected when these questions are included,” she said.

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