On Tuesday, August 18, I used my allotted three minutes, and then some, to make a public comment at the St. Paul Public School board meeting. It all started twelve years ago when the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) board of directors, I think it’s 14 people, made the decision to cease offering girls’ sports and replaced it with mixed-sex sports, aggressively enforced over the years by the Attorney General’s office, supplemented by an ideological indoctrination program starting at the kindergarten level, and covered up by local media that acts as the propaganda arm of gender ideology. The 509 member schools of the MSHSL never voted on this radical erasure of girls’ sports, and the MSHSL papered over their crime quite effectively by continuing to, fraudulently, label it “girls’ sports” and “girls’ locker room” and “girls’ restroom” while vigorously and proudly ensuring that those things were, in fact, mixed-sex opportunities and spaces. I used my three+ minutes to remind the SPPS school board of this ongoing outrageous human rights violation, and suggested they stop participating in that crime, and move to amend the MSHSL bylaws.
Here is what I said (public comment was livestreamed and video does exist of my venture into public speaking, but I find the video does not enhance my well-made points):
Good evening,
Enough schools have already signed in support of returning to biology-based eligibility for girls’ sports that the Minnesota State High School League will direct all school boards to gather community input, discuss, and decide before December 15th whether they support this change. I’m here tonight to ask you to support the Make It Fair MN amendment to the Minnesota State High School League bylaws, which you have in front of you.
Boys are not girls, and girls are not boys. That’s the biological reality on which sex-separated sports and girls’ rights have always been based.
Girls’ sports exist because sex matters in athletics. Being male produces physical advantages in strength, speed, size, and endurance that don’t disappear because we decide not to recognize them. The only thing that goes away when we don’t recognize sex is girls’ rights.
Girls’ sports are an inclusion strategy for all girls—including girls with trans identities. All girls depend on a female-only category for fairness, safety, opportunity, dignity, and privacy. Categories both include those who are eligible and exclude those who are not. No boy is eligible for girls’ sports. He is eligible for boys’ sports, regardless of his identity. Sex-separated sports are and always have been 100% inclusive of all kids. Girls and boys deserve sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms based on their sex.
For more than a decade, Minnesota has allowed males to compete in girls’ sports. For more than a decade, Minnesota has knowingly been violating girls’ TitleIX rights, and the federal funding contract associated with it.
There is no reason to keep doing this. It was wrong in 2014 and it’s wrong now.
That 2014 decision was made by the MSHSL Board. It was not voted on by the 509 member schools, as their own rules require. MSHSL rules give member schools, you, the authority to propose and vote on bylaw amendments. That means the schools themselves, you, can lead this change.
Attorney General Keith Ellison, Democratic lawmakers and gender activists would have you believe that female sports for females only is against state and federal law. It is not. The Supreme Court has determined that biology-based eligibility is enforceable under Title IX, protected under the Constitution, and definitely NOT gender discrimination. Refusing to support this proposed amendment is purely ideological, it is not rooted in facts, nor in protecting the legal or financial interests of your district.
I am angry that, after 12 years of state-facilitated violation, girls are having to beg for their own rights back. You can act now. Support the Make It Fair MN amendment to the MSHSL bylaws.
Thank you.
My address was followed by a marvel of facts and reason, suggesting that perhaps 12 years of ensuring that girls could not say NO to a boy in sports, locker rooms or restrooms was enough, by my neighbor and fellow DIAG member. And that concluded public comment for August 18th.
Video certainly would have enhanced this post if it had shown the facial expressions of the seven SPPS board members and the Superintendent as we presented our comments. My dangerously elevated blood pressure did not allow me to avert my eyeballs from my printed speech as I was talking, but I think a line or two about our audience members will give you an idea of how our messages were received.
Chauntyll Allen, a Teaching Assistant, Discovery Club teacher, and Educational Assistant and school board member since 2020, was arrested after storming a St. Paul church during a Sunday service to confront the pastor who was also an ICE agent. Allen was charged with “conspiracy to deprive others of their constitutional rights.” She justified the disruption of the church service by saying “in the Bible, Jesus flipped tables.” She has also gone full savior for Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ causes.
Chair of the school board Uriah Ward wore a rainbow striped Pride t-shirt to the meeting. His website lists among his accomplishments: “He successfully advocated for Narcan to be available for students in need, the construction of gender-inclusive bathrooms, and the expansion of yellow bus services. He voted to enact culturally-inclusive policies, started the practice of making policies more gender-inclusive, voted to make Juneteenth a district holiday, and voted to adopt our first new math curriculum in decades.” On that score, a recent report indicated that there are two St. Paul elementary schools that had grades in which NO student was proficient in math. These schools were, however, culturally inclusive. To Ward’s credit, every St. Paul high school had at least one student who could do grade-level math. Among Ward’s many endorsements are those from Stonewall DFL, St Paul DFL, and Minnesota Young DFL. It doesn’t get more progressive than that.
Carlo Franco is a Democrat running for Minnesota State Senate with the tag line “St. Paul needs an education expert in the State Senate.”
Asked by Sahan Journal to list three things he thought were going well in St. Paul Public Schools, board member Yusef Carrillo mentioned, “For an urban school district, St. Paul is actually doing fairly well in this transformation towards a science-based reading curriculum.” Apparently the science-based reading curriculum does not include the binary, immutable nature of human sex.
Halla Henderson is the first Eritrean American and Lebanese to win a school board seat. She “identif[ies] as biracial, and East African and Arab American.”
Brandon Lowe, one of a “two-dad family raising BIPOC children,” moved to St. Paul from Orlando, FL in 2021 specifically for its “diverse educational ecosystem.” Of his previous post at a high school in Orlando, Lowe told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the school increased its graduation rate from 86% to 99%. “We achieved this by auditing our internal gatekeeping, looking at who was allowed into advanced courses and who was being pushed out by our system.”
I don’t know who the seventh one is.
If there is a Republican or independent on the school board, they’re afraid to say so out loud. A more politically monolithic school board would be tough to find, and this particular monolith is all-in on the abolition of girls’ sports. I’m not sure my message landed on fertile ground.
An employee of St. Paul Public Schools came up and introduced himself before the meeting started and asked to talk after we’d said our piece. Which we did. This person wondered where we had gotten our information about Make It Fair MN’s proposed amendment, and the process I had described in my comment. This person had not heard of the amendment and was pretty sure the process I described was not how MSHSL bylaws actually get changed. We only had a few minutes to talk but what I gathered was pretty distressing—that in perhaps my one and only chance to talk to the St Paul school board, I had blathered on in error, that I was grievously uninformed about the process of changing MSHSL bylaws, and by extrapolation, all that shit about boys not being girls and no boy being eligible for girls’ sports was also hooey. I was, apparently, just another uninformed member of the public who didn’t know what she was talking about.
As you would, I went home and instead of sleeping, stared at the ceiling for eight hours trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. Also as you would, I blamed my childhood.
My neighbor went home and looked up the MSHSL Constitution and compared it with Make It Fair MN’s website. One of us spent her time more wisely.
Instead, next day, I fired off a round of emails, to my neighbor, to Make It Fair MN, to this SPPS employee who had kindly given me his email. In a reply, he asked not to be quoted, referenced, or represented in any way that suggested affiliation with, endorsing, or speaking on behalf of any organizations related to “this topic,” which I will respect. So, to be clear, I felt stupid all by myself, with no help from anyone.
My neighbor found that the process of bylaw change we described, from the Make It Fair MN’s website, matched the process described in the MSHSL Constitution. So, we were talking sense! About both the process and boys not being girls. My neighbor diplomatically posited that maybe not everyone throughout the state was aware of that process because it’s rarely used.
Here is the process of bylaw amendment from the MSHSL Constitution, which goes a long way toward explaining why it’s rarely used:
214.00 AMENDMENTS TO THIS CONSTITUTION This Constitution may be amended as follows: 1. An amendment shall be proposed by a resolution adopted by the Board of Directors directing that it be submitted for adoption at a meeting of the Member Schools, or when considered necessary, by taking a mail vote of the Member Schools. 2. A two-thirds favorable vote, assuming a quorum, shall be required for passage of any amendment, whether in a meeting or by mail vote.
215.00 AMENDMENTS TO GENERAL BYLAWS AND ALL ACTIVITY BYLAWS The General Bylaws, all other Activity Bylaws of the League, and all League Resolutions shall be adopted and amended in the following manner:
215.01 Vote on Amendments and Resolutions 1. The bylaws of the League may be amended at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Representative Assembly by a two-thirds vote of the members present, assuming a quorum. 2. Resolutions may be adopted at any regular meeting of the Representative Assembly by a majority vote of the members present, assuming a quorum.
215.02 Time for Submission Proposed amendments and resolutions shall be submitted to the Executive Director of the League by October 15 of each school year. By November 1 of each school year, the amendments that have been submitted will be sent to each of the 16 Region Committees. By February 15 of each school year, the Region Committees will respond to the League office regarding their support or rejection of the proposed amendment. Nine of the 16 Region Committees must support a proposed amendment before it will be submitted to the Representative Assembly for consideration. If a proposed amendment is supported but modified by a Region Committee, the modified amendment must be sent to the 16 Region Committees by February 1st of the school year for an additional vote by the Region Committees. By April 1 of each school year, the Region Committees must respond to the League office regarding any modified amendments they have reviewed. If the modified amendment is supported by nine of the 16 Region Committees, the amendment will be submitted to the Representative Assembly for their consideration. If the amendment or the modified amendment is not supported by nine of the 16 Region Committees, it will be sent back to the proposers for their reconsideration. The amendment(s) that will be advanced to the Representative Assembly will be listed on the League’s website, and they will become an agenda item for the Area Meetings held throughout the state each spring. The Representative Assembly will meet at a time designated by the League’s Board of Directors to deliberate and vote on any amendments that have been presented for their consideration. The Representative Assembly will have (1) an open forum for people to voice their concerns or support for an amendment, (2) a caucus of the Assembly members, (3) a report to the Assembly from each caucus group, and (4) a vote on the amendments presented to the Assembly. The Board of Directors may approve any amendment submitted outside the above-referenced timelines if two-thirds of the members of the Board of Directors approve the submission. www.MSHSL.org 21 2026-2027 MSHSL OFFICIAL HANDBOOK
215.03 Sponsors of Proposals Proposed amendments and resolutions may be submitted: 1. By the designated school representatives of five or more schools; 2. By any district or region committee; 3. By the Board of Directors; 4. By action of the Representative Assembly; or 5. By the officers of each activity association (Minnesota State High School Athletic Directors Association; Minnesota State High School Coaches Association; Minnesota State High School Coaches Association for Girls Sports [ha]; Minnesota Music Educators; Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota).
215.04 Effective Date All amendments and resolutions approved by the Assembly become effective, unless otherwise specified, on August 1.
215.05 Emergency Amendment Procedure The Board of Directors may, at its discretion, submit to the members of the Representative Assembly an amendment to the General Bylaws or the Activity Bylaws for approval by mail. A two-thirds favorable vote, assuming a quorum, shall be required for passage of such an amendment. If passed, the amendment is effective immediately but only until the next regular meeting of said Assembly at which time the amendment shall be resubmitted for action by the Assembly.
Got it? Judging from the fact that twelve years ago the MSHSL abolished girls’ sports, replaced it with mixed-sex sports, and has effectively covered up this weapons-grade human rights and Title IX violation by continuing to label sports as “girls’” and “boys’” while aggressively enforcing mixed-sex teams, this “process” is very effective. And was and will be abided by. Probably. As far as anyone knows.
The night of August 18th is far from the only time I’ve been viewed as a nutjob, and then, much later, quietly, halfway allowed that maybe I was talking sense! It seems many sex realists have had this experience. Going forward, I have resolved to keep talking about things I am quite sure about—boys are not girls, girls’ sports ceases to exist when boys are included, girls deserve their own boy-free stuff—every time I get the chance. And by “chance,” I mean when I determine the date and place and time of the meeting of any of any number of area school board and MSHSL meetings, and whether that group allows public comment, and whether it allows public comment only on the agenda items, and what those agenda items are. And having preregistered to speak. Giving preference, of course, to those who have not spoken within the last three months.
It’s almost as if these organizations don’t want to hear from the public. Maybe I’ll just take off my shirt (hiya Beth Bourne!)
Brava for the dogged determination in the face of an obstacle course!
Kudos on your persistence, and sympathies on living in MN.