Fairness Isn’t the Enemy of Inclusion: Rethinking the Playing Field

This post responds to the June 24, 2025 ISD 279 School Board meeting and the discussion surrounding Minnesota State High School League membership, Title IX, and fairness in athletics.

The room was still for a beat.

Not the kind of stillness that comes when people are bored, the kind that comes when the topic has weight. When the air feels heavier because what’s being said brushes against both principle and identity.

It wasn’t about budgets or bus routes this time. It was about the game. Not just a game, but the unspoken contract that makes competition worth the bruises, the 6 a.m. practices, the hours in the weight room.

And whether that contract still holds.

The Board’s Candor

A routine vote to renew membership in the Minnesota State High School League became anything but routine. One director said it plainly: athletic participation should be based on biological sex, not gender identity. She tied it directly to Title IX’s original promise, equal opportunity for both girls and boys, and warned about the legal and safety risks of ignoring that foundation.

Another acknowledged the lawsuits and legal interpretations swirling around Title IX. She reminded us that MSHSL sets the rules, and if we want to offer competitive athletics, we have to play under their umbrella. But she also recognized the tension between protecting female athletes and following externally set rules.

And then came a crucial reminder from another voice: MSHSL doesn’t just govern sports. It oversees speech, theater, robotics, and other competitive arenas. Which means this conversation isn’t just about athletics, it’s about standards across all spaces where our students put themselves on the line.

What We Can’t Pretend Away

This isn’t about whether transgender students deserve respect and safety. They do. Always. It’s about whether protecting one student’s opportunity should mean erasing another’s hard-earned fairness. Physiology is not a political slur - it’s a reality. Bone density, muscle mass, and speed don’t disappear because we stop talking about them. And in sports, those differences matter. Pretending they don’t doesn’t create inclusion, it undermines the integrity of the competition.

The promise of Title IX was simple: opportunity without caveat. The moment we allow that to wobble, we erode the trust athletes place in the rules, the scoreboard, and the adults charged with protecting both.

The Courage to Hold Two Truths

We’ve grown used to all-or-nothing arguments, but this isn’t one of them. Two things can be true at the same time:

• Every student deserves dignity and a place to belong.

• Every athlete deserves fair and safe competition.

Those aren’t mutually exclusive values unless we make them so. The problem is, threading that needle requires leaders willing to say the quiet part out loud: rules exist for a reason, and without them, the game itself loses meaning.

A Different Kind of Playing Field

What if the fight over sports categories didn’t have to be a fight at all? We could keep traditional divisions based on biological sex the way Title IX intended so fairness and safety remain intact. And alongside that, create a club-level league with eligibility rules designed for LGBTQIA+ athletes, giving them space to compete without rewriting every varsity roster.

College recruiters could choose whether and how to engage with those leagues. Some might scout heavily. Others might not. And if a traditional team and a club team want to face off? Make it an exhibition match by mutual choice. No one’s season is derailed, and no one’s opportunity is erased.

It’s not about separation it’s about expansion. Because the more avenues we give young people to test themselves, the more ways they have to grow. One solution doesn’t fit every athlete, every school, or every community. Sometimes the most respectful answer is to give each the space to thrive on their own terms.

More Than Sports

This isn’t just an athletic conversation it’s about how we structure all competitive spaces. If we’re inconsistent, if we defend fairness here but ignore it there, students will notice! They’ll learn that rules can be bent if you push hard enough. And once that lesson takes root, it’s hard to unteach.

Back to that moment of stillness.

I think people in the room knew this conversation isn’t going away anytime soon. And maybe that’s for the best. Because it forces us to keep wrestling with the balance between fairness and inclusion, to keep finding ways forward that honor both.

Fairness isn’t the enemy of inclusion. In fact, it’s the one thing that makes inclusion sustainable. The question is whether we have the courage to protect both,

or whether we’ll leave the game to be decided by whoever shouts the loudest.