NYS Board of Regents considers gender-neutral rule for school sports

The state Board of Regents on Monday proposed revised, gender-neutral rules to determine when a female or male student can play on a school sports team of the opposite sex, potentially opening the door to more coed teams.

While supporters of the proposed change said it would bring greater equity to school sports, some critics lamented that it could compromise girls sports by allowing in boys who could dominate.

Board trustees, who discussed the changes at their meeting Monday, said the new rules would apply when a school does not offer separate male and female teams for a particular sport. The rules would apply, for example, when a female student wants to play on a football or wrestling team, or a male student wants to play on a field hockey or girls volleyball team, they said.

Board members said they hoped to eliminate extra, burdensome requirements placed on students who wish to play a sport that traditionally caters to members of the opposite sex.

“I think this is long overdue,” said Roger Tilles, Long Island's longtime member of the Board of Regents. “It's not just in fairness to girls who want to play on the football team, but it is going to open field hockey for boys.”

But some Long Island sports officials worried about the consequences.

“I don’t think the proposed mixed competition policy will be any good for girls in sports,” said Pat Pizzarelli, the executive director of Section VIII, which governs Nassau sports. “Opening the door to allow boys to play girls sports across the board would be devastating to the girls.”

Pizzarelli said that should the board approve the proposal, it could result in boys taking over girls sports, potentially reversing decades of progress for girls.

“I can see where boys could take over girls sports. Once a boy hits puberty it’s a biological reality that they are bigger, stronger and faster,” Pizzarelli said. “I believe the girls flag football, which has grown exponentially in the last two years, would be the first sport that suffers.”

Under the current regulations, a female student wanting to play football is subject to a school-based evaluation panel before they can participate, as well as a test for their sexual maturity and development called the Tanner Sexual Maturity Rating.

The new rules would eliminate both the evaluation panels and the Tanner test, which has been used to assess a student's level of risk and injury, but which trustees termed “intrusive and demeaning.”

The revised rules say a student's eligibility should be determined by the tryout process, “where school staff can determine whether student athletes have sufficient sports-related skills, motor development, knowledge of the sport, motivation, cognitive and social development to be on a particular team,” according to a board statement accompanying the proposal.

The board has met with several groups to discuss the plan, including the New York State Public High School Athletic Association, the state Department of Health and the Athletic Administrators Association. Virtually all of them rejected the use of evaluation panels as “unfair, subjective and lacked transparency,” according to the board statement.

The board will submit the proposed changes to a 60-day public comment period, before voting on it in September. It would become effective that month.

The state Public High School Athletic Association supported the measure, executive director Robert Zayas said.

“We are in support of these regulatory changes because they are important steps in ensuring equality for all students,” he said.

Both Zayas and Tilles said they do not expect the proposed rules to impact the controversies regarding transgender school athletes. Tilles noted the state already has rules and regulations for transgender issues, and these plans do not change them.

When girls and boys have separate teams for the same sport but in different seasons, he was unsure Monday how the rules would apply. But he felt in such a scenario, boys and girls would have to go out for their respective teams.  

Tilles said he hoped the proposed changes would help ease the participation of females in traditionally male-dominated school sports. He noted there are females who want to wrestle or play football but their schools do not have female teams.

“If they are physically able to do so, why not?” he said.

But Tom Combs, the executive director of Section XI, which governs Suffolk sports, said the plan needs more scrutiny.

“I’m not in favor of anything that adversely affects the girls,” Combs said. “This was a proposal to examine and look at the mixed competition policy as written. There is nothing ratified at this time. It’s a proposal to be looked at in the fall.”

Combs added, “We really have to think about the girls. We’ve come a long way in girls sports and the opportunities they’ve earned. I’d hate to see that change.”

At Monday's board meeting, trustees heard testimony from Shira Mandelzis, who, when she was a student a few years ago at Riverdale High School in the Bronx, wanted to play on the football team. The team did not require students to try out and school officials said no member would be cut, she said.

“Because of my gender, I had to do a fitness test that would require me to run a mile, pushups and pullups. And these were exercises that nobody else on the team had to do,” she said.

Mandelzis said she also had to write an essay on her reasons for joining the team, undergo a school panel review and a Tanner test, a “physical and sexual maturity test that was long and uncomfortable, to say the least.”

She said she played football her junior year, but left the school before her senior year, in part because of the discrimination she faced.

“My mental and physical health were crushed,” she said.

But Sofia LaSpina, a local pioneer in of flag football, said she worries the proposed rule could compromise girls flag football.

“If they allow boys to try out for flag football, it'll ruin the sport for the girls,” she said.

The 2023 Mepham high school graduate played two years of varsity football in the fall and two years of flag football in the spring for the North Bellmore school. LaSpina was the first female to score a touchdown in a boys game in state history, for the Mepham Pirates. She became the face of flag football as the sport bloomed on Long Island.

“That's not fair, absolutely not,” LaSpina said. “At that point, it's just going to turn into a boys sport. … If that happens, they should just have boys flag football.”

Tilles, the Island's trustee, responded to such criticism: “They could set up a boys flag football team.”