Transgender sports participation issue is now a hot topic

Nattaphon Wangyot of Alaska is not going to make the Olympic team with his 100-meter time of 13.41 anytime soon and yet this athlete made the national news.

The Alaskan high school senior track sprinter was in the news as the first transgender person to medal at a state high school meet.

Wangyot is a male-to-female transgender person and ran in the girls category, displacing an athlete who feels she would have medaled if not for Wangyot.

When it comes to which sports team a transgender high school athlete in Alaska may play on, the Alaska School Activities Association says it will accept whatever policy is in place at the student’s school.

And does the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association have a policy?

“We were one of the first five states to have a policy on transgender athletes,” assistant director of the NIAA Donnie Nelson said. “We have had one for the last four years.”

He said the NIAA policy is similar to Alaska’s and lets each individual school decide whether or not the athlete can compete.

To this date there has not been a transgender person competing in the state of Nevada.

According to Nelson, this will be a hot topic of discussion at the National Federation of High Schools Association convention in Reno, which is June 28 to July 2.