What’s next after Florida proposal to require athletes’ period history? A vote is required

The Florida High School Athletic Association and its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee ignited a controversy last month when it took a step toward requiring female students to disclose their menstruation history in order to participate in high school sports.

The proposal, however, has not yet been officially adopted, so how close is it to actually becoming a reality?

A meeting later this month should determine whether the FHSAA goes through with this new policy or reverses course, if the majority of the FHSAA’s 16-member Board of Directors votes to adopt the change.

The FHSAA Board of Directors meets every few months throughout the fall, winter and spring, and its next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 26 and 27 in Gainesville. In these meetings, the board hears and proposes new guidelines, and can vote to implement new rules for its member schools. Often, the board will call upon its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee (SMAC) to make recommendations about health and safety policies, which it can then use to guide its decision making.

Separately, the SMAC meets every couple months, as well, to discuss what recommendations it will bring to board meetings. Often, these discussions include conversations about the consent forms students are required to sign to participate in athletics. This was the case last month when the SMAC met and decided to adopt a national physical form, which moved questions about menstruation from an optional section and made them mandatory.

The FHSAA uploaded the new form to its website the next day as “SMAC Agenda Additional Information,” as the SMAC decided to reconvene for a follow-up meeting on Zoom a week later, although neither minutes from the meeting nor a recording of the session are available on the FHSAA site.

The SMAC is scheduled to meet again next month, after the board’s next meeting.

With the Board of Directors’ next meeting still more than three weeks away, no agenda is available, although the plan coming out of the last meeting, which was held nearly three months ago, was to examine potential changes to the physical form, based on recommendations from the SMAC.

The SMAC can change its recommendation between now and Feb. 26, and the board does not have to follow the SMAC’s recommendation. For example, the board went against the SMAC’s recommendation in 2020 when the advisory committee suggested delaying the start of the fall season to let COVID-19 cases drop and the board decided instead to start the season as originally scheduled. Any changes to FHSAA bylaws require a majority vote from the board, which includes principals, superintendents, athletic directors, citizens at large and one representative from the Florida Department of Education.

The FHSAA Board of Directors has additional meetings scheduled for April and June.