A high school in Florida has been fined for allowing a transgender boy who identifies as a girl to compete on the girl’s volleyball team.
The Florida High School Athletic Association fined the Broward County high school on Tuesday in what appears to be the first penalty infraction for the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in 2021. Prior to the punishment, Monarch High School in Coconut Creek fell subject to an athletics investigation after students protested in solidarity with a transgender athlete who had been allowed to compete on the girl’s volleyball team.
“Thanks to (DeSantis), Florida passed legislation to protect girls’ sports, and we will not tolerate any school that violates this law,” Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. wrote in a statement on social media. “We applaud the swift action taken by the FHSAA to ensure there are serious consequences for this illegal behavior.”
According to Politico, the Florida High School Athletics Association (FHSAA) “determined that Monarch violated state rules and the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act by allowing a transgender athlete on a girls’ volleyball team for games this fall and last year.”
Demonstrators listen to the speaking program during an “Our Bodies, Our Sports” rally for the 50th anniversary of Title IX at Freedom Plaza on June 23, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The FHSAA levied a fine of $16,500 against Monarch High School and placed it on academic probation. School administrators are also now required to attend “compliance” seminars throughout the year while hosting “eligibility” and “compliance” workshops on campus. The school will be allowed to appeal the decision within 10 days, with Broward County Public School officials saying that its “investigation into the matter remains ongoing at this time.”
Politico provided further history leading up to the penalty:
The sanctions are the latest fallout over the volleyball team since Broward district officials in November shifted five Monarch employees to off-campus jobs as the investigation played out locally. The district, at least temporarily, removed school principal James Cecil, assistant principal Kenneth May, athletic director Dione Hester; girls’ volleyball coach and IT technician Jessica Norton and coach Alex Burgess as the Florida Department of Education warned of “serious consequences” facing the campus.
One of the employees, Norton, is the mother of the transgender student at the center of the dispute. The Norton family in 2021 challenged Florida’s transgender sports law in federal court arguing that the policy “would force her to abandon the sports that mean so much to her.” A federal judge later rejected the challenge but the plaintiffs are amending the complaint.
LGBTQ activists in the state have decried the law.
“Florida’s transgender sports ban didn’t emerge from a genuine concern for school athletics — it was part of a cynical political strategy to dehumanize and scapegoat marginalized youth,” said Carlos Guillermo Smith, senior policy adviser for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Florida.
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