If high schools (and even junior high and middle schools) haven't yet thought about how they would handle a situation in which a transgender student wanted to play a sport, they'd better start.
Certainly, that's the case in Massachusetts, where in February the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education extended guidelines protecting transgender students to include their being allowed to use the restroom and play on the sports team with the sex with which they identify. From the guidelines:
Where there are sex-segregated classes or athletic activities, including intramural and interscholastic athletics, all students must be allowed to participate in a manner consistent with their gender identity. With respect to interscholastic athletics, the
Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association will rely on the gender determination made by the student’s district; it will not make separate gender identity determinations.
The department didn't state when the guidelines take effect, or how a school would make a gender determination. In recent years, a few state school athletic associations, such as Washington, Oregon, Illinois and Colorado, have approved allowing students who physically are one sex but identify as another to compete on teams of the sex with which they identify. However, like the International Olympic Committee and the NCAA, the rules are drawn so that, unlike in Massachusetts, mere self-identification isn't enough.
While female-to-male students are free to compete on boys' teams, depending on the state, a male-to-female transgender must either be examined by medical professionals to determine that the identification is "sincere," or be undergoing approved hormone therapy and/or reassignment procedures.
Perhaps this is a seen as a safety issue, but I would guess that, like most rules, they're drawn up to make sure the competition isn't gaining an advantage through any loopholes, like a 6-foot-5 male declaring female identification merely as a plot to get a ringer on the girls' basketball team. To get an idea the complications in rules and how to handle transgender athletes, follow the controversy surrounding male-to-female MMA fighter Fallon Fox.
(This policy could change in California. Legislation introduced in early March would guarantee transgender students the right to use restrooms and participate in sports in the sex with which they identify, the first time such rights would be enumerated in state law.)
No matter how upset people might get over the mere existence of transgender students, or their participation in sports, schools nationwide are going to have to think about how they will handle the situation. Just shutting out transgender students is not an option. An attorney writing for the National Federation of State High School Associations' magazine made it pretty clear that if a school tries to prevent a transgender student from participating outright, it will risk losing a lawsuit based on Title IX, the Americans with Disabilities Acts, or various non-discrimination laws.
While school officials are holding their meetings to discuss how to implement a federal edict to expand athletics access to disabled students, they may as well, what with everyone in the room already, add transgender students to the agenda. The laudable goal is to give opportunities to as many students who want to participate in sports as possible, and it's the right thing -- and, apparently, the legally safe thing -- to figure out how to accomplish that.