ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The Alaska state board of education on Thursday voted to support banning transgender girls from competing on high school girls athletic teams, sending the issue to the attorney general.
Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who appointed the members of the state education board, has said the regulation is needed to ensure fairness in girls sports. The proposal now goes to another Dunleavy appointee, Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor, a Republican, to determine whether it should go into effect.
The agenda for the board meeting said the state government administration had no recommendation on whether the proposal should pass.
On Thursday, the board met in special session and approved on a 7-1 vote a regulation saying, “If a separate high school athletics team is established for female students, participation shall be limited to females who were assigned female at birth.”
The only dissenting vote came from Felix Myers, the high school student representative on the board. The military advisor on the board abstained.
The board had initially taken up the matter in July, but it delayed its vote after hearing more than 2 1/2 hours of testimony and receiving about 1,400 pages of written comments.
