Mandatory Menstrual Cycle Reporting Possible For FL Female Athletes

GAINESVILLE, FL — A Florida group is considering a policy that would require female athletes to provide information about their menstrual cycles in order to play sports, a move that one advocate says would further "stigmatize and demonize transgender people," according to reports.

The Florida High School Athletic Association is weighing proposed changes to the state's Preparticipation Physical Evaluation Form after the new draft was approved by the organization's sports medicine advisory committee in January, according to The Associated Press.

If approved, athletes would be required to say if they’ve had a menstrual cycle, at what age they had their first menstrual period, their most recent menstrual period and “how many periods [the student has] had in the past 12 months," the Miami Herald reported.

Currently, questions about a player's menstrual cycle are optional.

In comments provided to the Herald, Maxx Fenning, president of PRISM, a South Florida nonprofit organization that provides sexual health information to LGBTQ+ youth, called the proposal "an extremely invasive mode of gleaning into someone’s reproductive history."

"This is clearly an effort to further stigmatize and demonize transgender people in sports [and] meant to further exclude people who aren’t assigned female at birth in girls sports,” Fenning told the Herald. “Beyond that, I think there’s concern among LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ [students] alike."

The Florida High School Athletic Association is a private nonprofit organization. It is not a state agency under the purview of Gov. Ron DeSantis' office.

The proposed form will be considered by the association board of directors at a meeting in Gainesville later this month.

Committee member Robert Sefcik told the AP that making the menstrual cycle questions mandatory rather than optional is consistent with national guidelines for sports physicals developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Sports Medicine and other groups.

The national guidelines say menstrual history is an “essential discussion for female athletes” because period abnormalities could signify “low energy availability, pregnancy, or other gynecologic or medical conditions.”

"Menstrual dysfunction is 2-3 times more common in athletes than nonathletes, and 10-15 perent of female athletes have amenorrhea (loss of menstrual cycle) or oligomenorrhea (a decrease in number of menstrual cycles per year),” the guidelines read. “Amenorrhea occurs more frequently in players of sports that emphasize leanness, such as running, gymnastics, cheerleading, dance, and figure skating.”