This petition is intended to persuade the KHSAA (Kentucky High School Athletics Association) Board of Control to review and update their guidelines to make them more inclusive to all student athletes. Additionally, this petition is intended to sway Kentucky lawmakers to repeal Senate Bill 83 in the 2023 legislative session, which signed a similar policy into law. 

Feel free to review my long-form essay on this subject for more in-depth explanations and sources for my claims: Transgender Student Athletes

The KHSAA policies and Kentucky state laws regarding transgender students' participation in school-sponsored athletic programs are expressly discriminatory. Said guidelines prohibit nearly any transgender athlete from participating on teams aligning with their gender identity. 

Transgender women, assigned male at birth, have shown no quantifiable athletic advantage over their female cisgender (AKA not transgender) counterparts once they have been on estrogen and testosterone/androgen blockers for between 4-12 months. Forcing transgender women to compete with cisgender men not only leaves trans women at a disadvantage, but also provides absolutely no benefits to cisgender athletes. 

Transgender men, assigned female at birth, have a marked advantage over cisgender women once they begin taking testosterone. This means that transgender men are effectively forced to dominate women's sports. Take Mack Beggs for example. He was forced by a similar policy in Texas to compete on a women's wrestling team because he was assigned female at birth, despite now reaping the advantages of testosterone. He easily won nearly every competition in which he participated. 

Forcing transgender athletes to compete on teams not aligning with their gender identity also has negative effects on their mental health. Repeated exclusion from group activities, including sports, can lead to depression and suicidal ideation. 

Based on the evidence provided, it should be clear that, in addition to not protecting cisgender athletes, this policy is truly harmful to trans and gender-nonconforming children and teens.