Florida Requiring Female Athletes to Report Menstrual Cycle
Written by Gisela Bunch | Edited by Jackie Wang
In a surprising turn of events, Florida has removed optional questions on school forms which ask female athletes for menstrual health details in order to participate in team sports. In the past month, Florida governor Ron DeSantis contemplated requiring athletes to submit period history in order to participate in sports at school. Previously, the questions had been optional for female athletes.
Many voiced disagreements with Governor DeSantis’ proposed idea and pointed to the host of problems it would bring about.
During the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which criminalized abortions in Florida, apps and websites such as Clue and Flo were heavily scrutinized, as many people input their menstrual cycle details into them. With the Supreme Court overturning the case, many questioned the true privacy these apps offered its users.. However, health privacy can go beyond these applications; and Florida’s possible mandate with the female athletes was a strong example of this.
Additionally, others argued that the mandate was a blatant attempt for schools to find female transgender students and prevent them from participating in girls’ teams in sports. In 2021, Governor Ron Desantis already signed a law that prevented female transgender students from playing on girls’ teams. Critics argued that the questions proposed for the mandate were just poorly disguised questions to discover a student’s assigned sex at birth. One question plainly asked students for this information and would have been a required question had Florida not decided against the bill.
Now, Florida shockingly has joined a minority of states that don’t ask for menstrual health details from its athletes. Whether or not this decision is due to public outburst about the mandate, Florida’s choice to deny it is a significant step for female and trans athletes who already suffer under oppressive laws enforced by the government.
- Kilpatrick, A. (2022, June 30). Period tracker app Flo dev ‘anonymous mode’. NPR. Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://www.npr.org/2022/06/30/1108814577/period-tracker-app-flo-privacy-roe-v-wade
- Kohli, A. (2023, February 1). Florida Wants Student Athletes to Share Menstrual History. Time. Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://time.com/6252147/florida_student_athletes_menstrual_history/
- Landman, K. (2023, February 10). Florida scraps student-athlete period tracking questions. Vox. Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2023/2/7/23587699/florida-menstrual-period-history-student-athletes-privacy-medical
- MARCELO, P. (2023, February 3). Florida weighs mandating menstrual cycle details for female athletes. AP News. Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-desantis-florida-sports-female-athletes-160560972802
- Zeigler, C. (2023, February 3). At least 44 states currently ask female athletes about menstrual period. Outsports. Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://www.outsports.com/2022/10/12/23393286/menstrual-cycle-questions-female-athletes-states-high-school-trans-male-genital-inspection
