On Alert: What’s the Story with Florida Potentially Mandating Period History from Female High School Athletes
Florida has made headlines across the country as parents and pediatricians are shocked at the prospect of female athletes being required to answer all mensuration questions, and that these answers will be submitted electronically and the information stored in a database.
What is going on in Florida?
For the last 20 years, student athletes in Florida have been required to have a sports physical to participate in high school athletics, and menstruation history has always been a part of this physical. However, until last fall, these questions were optional, and the form was a handwritten copy turned into the school. This is common practice across the nation as menstruation is an important indicator of female health. However, turning this information over to schools is not common.
So what changed?
Last fall, Florida moved to change sports physical evaluations from handwritten forms to a digital form to be stored by the sports management software company Aktivate. According to their privacy policy and federal law, these records would be subject to legal subpoenas.
As stated by Women's Media Center, this switch “raised red flags about student privacy” and that “critics of the policy say the change puts trans and reproductive rights at risk.” According to AP News, the form contains a “ females only” section which asks the following questions:
Whether the student has ever had a period;
The age they had their first period;
How long the interval between their periods typically lasts;
How many periods they had in the last year; and
The longest interval between periods in the last year.
According to NBC News, a Palm Beach County School District has asked the Florida High School Athletic Association - the organization who sets policy related to student athletes - to remove all questions about menstruation history. On January 17, 2023, The Florida High School Athletic Association announced that they would not be removing menstruation questions, and they took it a step further recommending that the questions be mandatory.
The public reaction to this announcement was overwhelmingly in opposition. Many parents and medical experts expressed their concern over the invasion of student privacy. On February 9, 2023, an emergency meeting for the Board of the Association was called, and the Board voted to remove all questions regarding menstruation. However, they also voted to change another question, amending the form to ask for “sex at birth” where it previously just asked for the student’s sex. Read more about this here.