A high school track coach in Oregon claims he was fired for advocating for a change to the state’s lenient transgender inclusion rules to create a transgender-only category so girls would not have to compete against boys in school sports.
John Parks, a track & field coach for Lake Oswego High School, says that he was fired after writing letters to the Executive Director of the Oregon Student Activities Association and state Sen. Rob Wagner.
In the letters, he advocated for a trans-only category. He added that he was concerned that boys who compete as transgender girls “compromises the integrity of girls’ sports,” according to KATU-TV.
Parks was spurred to write his letters after seeing a transgender athlete being booed after he won a girl’s title at the State Championships.
“I want them to be able to participate where they’re not booed,” Parks told the media.
“The OSAA competition rules need to be aligned with what the rest of the world competes under,” Parks wrote in his letter to Sen. Wagner.
Parks worried that simply allowing boys to compete as girls solely on the student’s say-so does not comport with the hormone and medical requirements in most sports that allow trans athletes. Currently, Oregon does not require any proof from transgender teens before allowing them to compete as their chosen gender.
“My proposal to encourage transgender participation is to offer an open division that is so named so it doesn’t identify or discriminate but offers an opportunity to participate,” Parks added.
After his letters became known, Parks says that the Lake Oswego School District fired him almost immediately.
Mary Kay Larson, the Director of Communications at Lake Oswego School District, refused to comment on the firing, claiming that the school district does not comment on “personnel matters.”
Parks, though, is appealing his termination and says that he was fired for political reasons.
“I’m going to fight now because I got wronged,” he told the station. “I … am fighting for girls, I’m fighting for female sports, and I’m fighting for it to be fair for everybody.”
The Oregon School Activities Association policy release in 2019 allows “students to participate for the athletic or activity program of their consistently asserted gender identity while providing a fair and safe environment for all students” and that the rule “promotes harmony and fair competition.”
There are no other requirements besides the student’s stated desire to play sports in categories corresponding to their assumed gender.
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