Florida High School Pays the Price for Letting Boy Play on Girls' Volleyball Team, Thanks to DeSantis' Law
Maybe this will teach them.
A high school in Florida’s deeply Democratic Broward County is learning the hard way that the Sunshine State takes a dim view of letting boys play in sports reserved for girls.
And it’s time to pay the price.
According to an Associated Press report Tuesday, the Florida High School Athletic Association has fined Monarch High in Coconut Creek $16,500 for allowing a 10th-grade male student to compete on the girls volleyball team for two seasons after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law specifically forbidding the practice.
Florida high school punished, fined thousands for allowing boy to play on girls’ volleyball team https://t.co/YoXMGmvEEV
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) December 13, 2023
The “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” was signed June 1, 2021, taking effect a month later.
“As a father of two daughters, I want my girls, and every girl in Florida, to compete on an even playing field for the opportunities available to young women in sports,” DeSantis said at the time.
“Women have fought for decades to have equal opportunities in athletics, and we have to prevent those opportunities from being eroded as is happening in other states. It’s common sense.”
[firefly_poll]
Nonetheless, the boy was allowed to play on the girls’ team until November, when a phone call alerted the Broward County School District to the situation.
The coach, Alex Burgess, claimed he did not know the student was actually a boy, according to The Washington Post.
That might be true, though it strains belief.
Even if the boy’s gender wasn’t self-evident — he has been on testosterone blockers since he was 11 and taking estrogen since he was 13, according to the AP — his family had already challenged the law unsuccessfully, according to the Post, which means a coach even vaguely aware of what was happening at his own school probably should have been able to figure out what was up.
And the boy’s mother is an information management technician at the school, according to WPLG-TV in Miami. On a school campus, people do tend to talk.
The Florida high school that allowed a transgender athlete to play on the girl’s volleyball team has been fined and put on probation. The athlete has also been punished.
You break state law, you face consequences.
READ: https://t.co/q4IRer4e8b pic.twitter.com/eIiXp2p2sQ
— OutKick (@Outkick) December 13, 2023
Under the FHSAA ruling, the school’s principal, James Cecil, and Athletic Director Dione Hester must attend a seminar on compliance with the law during the summer of 2024, according to WPLG.
Cecil, Hester and Assistant Principal Kenneth May were “reassigned” at the beginning of the district’s investigation, WPLG reported. Their status wasn’t clear Wednesday, but Cecil and May were still listed in their positions on the school’s website.
The district “paused” Burgess in his coaching position, according to WPLG.
His status, as well as the status of the boy’s mother’s employment, was unclear Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the school itself must host FHSAA officials for a workshop on “eligibility and compliance.”
And Monarch has been placed on a year’s administrative probation.
Think they should be getting the message that Florida takes its laws seriously?
Meanwhile, the boy in question has been declared ineligible to participate in sports at any FHSAA-member school until Nov. 20, 2024 — one year from the “date of discovery” that he was breaking the rules.
Naturally, the news was greeted with the usual hand-wringing from the biased establishment media. The AP report, for instance, insisted on referring to the athlete in question as a “girl” and using feminine pronouns in the piece — which defies both biology and logic in the context of the school’s punishment.
But there was plenty of celebration on social media from those glad to see an institution standing up to the bullying tide of the trans agenda.
“Need to see more of this. Girls should still have a safe and fair place to play. That’s not asking too much,” one person commented.
Need to see more of this. Girls should still have a safe and fair place to play. That’s not asking too much
— Topher (@tophernugent) December 13, 2023
Good! Males don’t belong on female sports teams
— Al Saganich (@AlSaganichJr) December 13, 2023
Kudos to FL and Gov Ron DeSantis!!!
— Bidens_Diaper (@diaper_bidens) December 13, 2023
Good job Florida!!
— Adam Gallegos (@RedPillChicano) December 13, 2023
To be clear, this isn’t about the boy. No decent person wishes ill on a teenager who’s struggling with sexuality or identity or anything else. (And in this kid’s case, he’s got a mother who’s clearly not helping things much.)
But there are real issues of fairness and safety involved when it comes to boys and men competing against girls and women, even if leftists refuse to recognize them.
Girls have been injured in competition with boys — and volleyball has been a particular flashpoint for such injuries.
Women have been cheated out of victories in athletic events by men abusing their God-given physical strength to dominate competitions they have no more business being a part of than if they were adults playing children.
And, as brave women like former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines can testify, transgender activists are too dangerous to confine their physical bullying to athletic competitions.
But Florida is taking a stand. It’s time the trans left learned a lesson.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
