Monarch High School in Florida let a transgender athlete play on the girls' volleyball team for two seasons, despite it being against state law. An investigation took place.

Principal James Cecil, Assistant Principal Kenneth May, and Athletic Director Dione Hester have been cleared in the school district's investigation. They are back on the job today.

They were reassigned after the controversy was exposed. The student's mother, an information management specialist at the school was also reassigned. She was moved to a non-school site during the investigation. A temporary volleyball coach had his services suspended during the investigation. 

'The investigation by the BCPS Special Investigate Unit cleared Principal James Cecil, Assistant Principal Kenneth May, and Athletic Director Dione Hester of the allegations,' spokesperson Keyla Concepción said.

'The three employees will resume their responsibilities effective Wednesday, May 22, 2024. The investigation remains ongoing on the fourth Monarch employee included in the probe.

'Monarch High School complied with the sanctions imposed by the Florida High School Athletic Association, including paying the assessed fine and attending the organization’s compliance seminar in early May.'

The student's parents filed a lawsuit against Florida's "Fairness in Women's Sports" legislation. That legislation dictates that male student-athletes must play on teams that correspond with their biologically assigned sex at birth. The parents claim their child's sex was changed on the birth certificate. Therefore it is right that he was playing on the girls' team.

Monarch High School was hit with a hefty fine - $16,500 - and barred the trans athlete from competing in further volleyball seasons.

The fine was calculated by charging $500 for each of the 33 volleyball competitions the student played in during the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons. 

I'm sorry to report that protests were held at the high school in solidarity with the trans student. Students packed onto the football field waving flags and holding signs that read "trans lives matter." 

Young people today are being brainwashed that gender dysphoria is normal. 

I don't begrudge trans students their lives. As a conservative, I say let them live their lives with as little government control as possible. However, when social norms are violated at the expense of normies - those who are not members of a very small minority of society - then it is time to speak out. There is nothing normal about men competing with women, not at the high school level or any other level in life. Unless a team is purposefully co-ed, women in sports should be allowed to compete with other women without a man joining the competition. 

The student's mother is speaking out.

''There is a long history in this country of outing people against their will — forced outing, particularly of a child, is a direct attempt to endanger the person being outed,' she said.

'We kindly ask everyone to respect our family's privacy, and to give our family the space we need to speak to our experience on our own terms and timeline.' 

'I think this has completely ruined her life,' Volleyball team captain Jordan Campbell said of the unnamed student. 

'I played with her and I think everyone who thinks that they have this opinion on her but don't even know her, has no idea who she is. She was the sweetest person anyone has ever met,' she told NBC6.

The student may be the nicest person who ever walked the hallways of the school. That isn't the point. The point is that the competition was for girls' sports. This student's parents may have changed the birth certificate but that doesn't change the fact that at birth, the baby was determined to be male. 

It's the birth certificate that is the deciding factor and that is where the student wins, in this case. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law in 2021 excluding transgender girls and women from girls' and women's sports teams in public schools.

'In Florida, girls are going to play girls' sports and boys are going to play boys' sports,' DeSantis said as he signed the bill into law. 'We're going to make sure that that's the reality.'

The statute says athletic teams or sports designated for females, women or girls are not open to male students.

It adds that 'a statement of a student's biological sex on the student's official birth certificate is considered to have correctly stated the student's biological sex at birth.

That is why the officials were cleared. The birth certificate says female. 

The district's superintendent said there will be new processes moving forward to determine a player's eligibility. Sheesh.