Manhattan’s largest neighborhood school board district approved a resolution Wednesday night demanding an examination of the current policy allowing trans-identifying males to compete in girls’ sports.
Community Education Council District 2, which encompasses Manhattan schools from the Lower East Side to the Upper East Side, voted 8-3 to request the New York City Department of Education allow a public review of the policy. It is one of six districts serving Manhattan.
Passions ran high at Wednesday’s school board meeting in midtown Manhattan, where parents, City Council members, and even the trans-identifying actor who now goes by Elliot Page showed up to voice their opinions.
New York City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, a Democrat, condemned the resolution at the meeting.
“We are outraged that you’re considering a resolution targeting transgender girls and sports. It is utterly shocking that such a regressive and harmful resolution is being proposed in the school district in the middle of Manhattan,” Bottcher said.
The resolution is largely symbolic, but its goal is to promote parental involvement and transparency around the policy allowing trans-identifying males to play on girls’ teams.
The resolution also calls for more input from athletes, parents, coaches, medical professionals, and evolutional biology experts.
School board member Maud Maron, one of the resolution’s sponsors, is a Democrat who describes herself on X as an “unapologetic old-school liberal.”
“If we have a proper and real conversation, one of the outcomes could be that nothing changes and that we all discover that these guidelines are just perfect as they are,” Maron said.
“But another one of the possibilities is that we realize that the excluded voices had something really important to offer and they should have been heard from in the beginning,” she added.
Maron previously called for a ban on trans-identifying males in girls’ sports when she ran for Congress last year.
The city’s education department commented on its transgender sports policy on Wednesday.
“At New York City Public Schools, all students have the right to have their gender, gender identity, and gender expression recognized and respected,” the department said in a statement. “In our schools, every student can participate in sports and competitive athletics in accordance with their gender identity, and we prohibit any exclusion of students based on their gender identity or expression.”
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The Manhattan school board district’s decision comes just weeks after Nassau County banned trans-identifying males from competing on female teams at county-run facilities.
Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner, who identifies as transgender, made a public appearance in Nassau County on Monday to support the county’s decision.
“Let’s stop it now while we can,” Jenner said.