Teen Defeated Their Daughters. They Forced Probe Into Her Gender

The parents of the second- and third-place winners in a high school sports competition were suspicious about the female first-place winner who had bested their daughters. So they filed a complaint with the Utah High School Activities Association wondering whether the winner was transgender. The story was revealed Wednesday by the UHSAA’s legislative representative, who was addressing questions of how UHSAA handles such complaints in an appearance before the Utah Legislature’s Education Interim Committee, Deseret News reports.

The rep did not reveal the sport, the school, or the identities or ages of anyone involved, but he said the UHSAA asked the school to verify the student-athlete's gender via enrollment records: "The school went back to kindergarten and she’d always been a female," he said. The student and her family were never informed of the probe, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The winner had "outclassed" the other girls, he said, winning first "by a wide margin."

He added that UHSAA gets such complaints often, including "when an athlete doesn’t look feminine enough" in someone's opinion, and that all are investigated fully. One transgender advocate says this should raise concerns: "Where does the UHSAA get their authority to go investigate? Where is it in their policy? If they’re just going to do it when they’re yelled at,” parents will start lodging complaints willy-nilly, she suggested. "If they’re going to examine a level of records without telling the athlete, they should have a policy behind it. Otherwise, what constrains their behavior?" Transgender females are legally barred from playing on girls' sports teams in Utah. (More Utah stories.)