Frances Staudt, 15, stumbled into trouble at a Feb. 7 home game in Tumwater when she noticed an opposing player who stood out during warm-ups. That player stood out because he is a male, and Staudt informed her coach and the athletic director she was refusing to play against a teen boy.
Her refusal to play, which generated controversy in blue-state Washington, was compounded when she walked past the male player and told him, “You’re a man.”
That comment, while being true to science and biology, is referred to as “misgendering” and is like speaking heresy among transgender activists and their allies. The reasoning behind that is that a person’s belief about his or her gender outweighs reality, and to even suggest that what is true is true is deemed intolerant and wrong.
Tumwater School District is located in Thurston County, where voters chose Kamala Harris over Donald Trump 58%-37%.
Even though Staudt was threatened with punishment by school officials, she gained an ally from an organization called FAIR, Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism. It filed a complaint at the U.S. Department of Education, with its Office of Civil Right, on the teen girl’s behalf.
“This sort of discrimination is something that Title IX was specifically designed to protect,” Monica Harris, FAIR executive director, tells AFN. “Title IX was put in place to provide safe places for women and girls so we would not compete against boys and men."
Making good on a campaign promise, President Donald Trump was reversing the Biden administration’s radical rewrite of Title IX law at almost the same time Staudt was refusing to play against the male player.
President Trump signed a “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order Feb. 5, just two days before the basketball game.
Staudt was also threatened with punishment by Chris Reykdal, Washington’s superintendent of public instruction. He denounced Trump’s women-in-sports policy and also downplayed the number of transgender athletes participating in Washington state athletics.
“It is quite simply inaccurate to say, biologically, that there are only boys and there are only girls,” Reykdal stated during the controversy.
Staudt was also threatened with punishment by the WIAA, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. Its current policy allows athletes to participate on the team that is “consistent with their gender identity.”
Even before Staudt’s stance, however, the WIAA was weighing a ban on transgender athletes with new amendments to its current rules. Publicity from the teen girl’s stance may help the new rules get approved in a final vote set for April.
Back in the Tumwater School District, its board of directors voted in late February to support the proposed policy changes at the WIAA.
Harris, the FAIR executive director, says one outspoken high school student made a difference.
“That Frances was courageous enough, and her family was courageous enough to stand up and support her,” Harris says, “we might be seeing a genuine shift in policy at Tumwater as a result of her actions."
