Here’s everything Utah wants to know about trans girls before deciding if they can play high school sports — from weight to lung volume​on February 6, 2025 at 1:00 pm

How old a transgender girl was when she started puberty will now be part of a huge swath of sensitive student health data that Utah wants to know in order to help officials decide if that child can play high school sports for a girls’ team.

​What age a transgender Utah student was when they started puberty will now be part of a huge swath of sensitive health data that’s formally requested by the state and factored in if that student wants to play high school sports for a girls’ team.  

How old a transgender girl was when she started puberty will now be part of a huge swath of sensitive student health data that Utah wants to know in order to help officials decide if that child can play high school sports for a girls’ team.

Also on the list of measurements sought about these minors: their weight, muscle strength, lung volume and even how good their eyesight is.

Utah’s School Activity Eligibility Commission — a group of adults tasked with hearing cases and deciding which transgender girls can or can’t participate on high school teams matching their gender identity — will also evaluate each metric differently depending on which sport the student is hoping to sign up for.

Transgender girls looking to join the volleyball team, for instance, will be judged more stringently on their height than those who want to wrestle. But those who want to wrestle will have their muscle fiber looked at more closely.

It’s the first time the state has provided a formal list of all the body metrics and a breakdown by sport it wants to consider when deciding if transgender girls can compete against student athletes who were born female. A student can’t be mandated to provide all of the personal data, but they can be judged, as well, for not doing so.

It’s unclear how the guidance may now be affected by an executive order President Donald Trump issued Wednesday that aimed to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.

On Monday, Paul Hruz, an endocrinologist who is a member of Utah’s eligibility commission, said: “Our task is to look at the data in front of us. … And there are things that are genetically different between males and females.”

The newly delineated Utah requirements were unanimously approved by the commission Monday night after nearly two hours of discussion that started with a draft document. The group has been trying to formalize its processes for handling petitions from transgender female athletes, which had been ongoing without any detailed criteria since spring 2023.

The commission was triggered as a backup plan by Republican state lawmakers who originally wanted an outright ban on transgender girls competing on high school girls’ teams. But that was put on hold in 2022 when a judge issued an injunction while a lawsuit from two transgender girls challenging the ban moved forward. A four-day bench trial is currently scheduled to start in the case on April 29.

In place of the ban, lawmakers tasked the commission with weighing cases and creating guidelines for who can play. Parents of transgender athletes have been begging for direction from the group since, arguing that without it, decisions have felt arbitrary.

The commission first took significant action last month, when it set a testosterone level that is stricter than what’s required by both the NCAA and the Olympics. At 66ng/dL, that level is four times lower than the threshold to play college sports.

That immediately drew backlash from advocates who said the threshold would make it impossible for any transgender student to play. Hruz acknowledged as much during the Monday meeting: “That’s going to basically disqualify most, if not all, individuals if they weren’t already on puberty blockers,” he said.

Advocates also questioned why the group wasn’t providing the sport-by-sport analysis it had promised. The commission countered that it was planning to add thatin time, prompting the additional guidance outlined Monday.

Hruz has made a reputation for himself as an anti-transgender doctor who refuses to work with transgender patients and has testified against them and gender-affirming health care in federal court cases. On Monday, he shared for the first time why such a strict testosterone level was selected, explaining that it’s at the upper end of the normal testosterone range for individuals who are born female.

The testosterone level threshold only applies to transgender girls. The acceptable level must be maintained both before puberty and during gender-affirming medical care, which is required to play but was also blocked for youth in Utah in 2023, making it impossible to begin seeking itif a student wasn’t already doing so before the law was passed.

Hruz acknowledged that some medical conditions, such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS, can cause elevated testosterone levels in girls, but only those who are transgender would be barred based on the standard.

He said testosterone is the best way to measure if a student could have an advantage or be a safety risk to other athletes — the two things the commission was explicitly told to consider under the law.

What does the state want to know?

The commission decided to add the age that an athlete starts puberty and how fast they’ve progressed in puberty, alongside testosterone, as its baseline measures.

After that, the members came up with eight different categories to look at for possible advantages by sport: stature, muscle strength, lung volume, muscle fiber type, aerobic endurance, power, visual acuity and how much contact a sport has.

There are 11 high school sports in Utah that have teams specifically for girls: basketball, golf, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, wrestling, softball and cross country.

The commission ranked how likely it was that a transgender girl might have an advantage in each category on a scale of low, medium or high, depending on the sport.

Members felt how much contact a sport has should be among the biggest factors for determining whether a transgender athlete can play or not — suggesting they present more risk for harm.

At one point, commission member Paul A. Thompson, a statistician, questioned whether they should ban transgender girls outright from all contact sports. The group did not move forward with that but said it will prove harder for a transgender athlete to get approval to play them under the new guidelines.

“The eligibility of a person to play basketball should be considered quite more strictly than a person swimming,” Thompson said.

So far, Thompson said, the commission has only weighed cases for transgender girls looking to swim or participate in track in field. High school sports that are considered “mixed,” meaning both girls and boys can play, will not go before the commission. Those are: football, baseball, drill team and cheer.

Stature

The commission intends to ask every transgender athlete who wants to play about their height and weight, which are easy to measure, and possibly their hip girth in some cases.

They’d also like to request, for certain sports, measurements for the length of an athlete’s arms and lengths, to determine if that gives them an unfair advantage — particularly for swimming.

With softball and volleyball, the committee feels longer arms could also mean the athlete could throw or spike a ball with more force. There was also discussion about asking for bone density tests in some cases.

•Basketball: high

•Golf: medium

•Lacrosse: high

•Soccer: medium, depending on the position the athlete plays

•Swimming: high

•Tennis: high

•Track and field: variable, depending on the event

•Volleyball: high

•Wrestling: low

•Softball: medium

•Cross country: low

Muscle strength

Muscle strength is measured mostly with gym tests like a bench press, determining how much weight an athlete can lift. The commission felt this was an important metric to highly consider for all sports, expect cross country, which it ranked medium.

•Basketball: high

•Golf: high

•Lacrosse: high

•Soccer: high

•Swimming: high

•Tennis: high

•Track and field: high

•Volleyball: high

•Wrestling: high

•Softball: high

•Cross country: medium

Lung volume

This is about the capacity of an athlete’s lungs and how that contributes to their success in a sport. The commission mostly talked about that as an advantage for swimming, suggesting that transgender girls have an inherent advantage in the sport because of their greater lung capacity. This is seen by the group as a genetic measurement, rather than something that could be improved through training.

•Basketball: low

•Golf: low

•Lacrosse: medium

•Soccer: medium

•Swimming: high

•Tennis: low

•Track and field: variable, depending on the event

•Volleyball: low

•Wrestling: medium

•Softball: low

•Cross country: high

Muscle fiber type

There are two main types of muscle fibers that contribute to athletic performance: Type 1 is a benefit for endurance activities, such as distance running; Type 2 is used for fast bursts, such as a sprint.

A muscle biopsy can determine if an athlete has more or less of one type. Less invasive measures, such as an MRI, might also provide information on that. For most sports, the commission felt that any athlete that has a boon in either type of fiber might unfairly give them the upper hand in competition.

•Basketball: high

•Golf: low

•Lacrosse: medium

•Soccer: medium

•Swimming: high

•Tennis: medium

•Track and field: variable, depending on the event

•Volleyball: medium

•Wrestling: high

•Softball: medium

•Cross country: high

Aerobic endurance

The commission combined endurance, generally, with aerobic capacity and stroke volume (the amount of blood pumped out of the heart) for this measurement. It’s centered around an athlete’s breathing and heart function and how long they can sustain activity. Those who have better endurance tend to perform better in longer events, such as long-distance running or swimming.

•Golf: low

•Lacrosse: medium

•Soccer: medium

•Swimming: variable, depending on the event

•Tennis: low

•Track and field: variable, depending on the event

•Volleyball: low

•Wrestling: medium

•Softball: low

•Cross country: high

Power

Power is a measurement of the rate of strength development, as in, how quickly strength can be exerted. It’s hitting a baseball or tennis ball, for instance, with a lot of force. The commission worried that a transgender girl may injure another athlete due to this, such as spiking a volleyball harder.

•Basketball: high

•Golf: medium to high

•Lacrosse: medium

•Soccer: medium

•Swimming: variable, depending on the event

•Tennis: high

•Track and field: variable, depending on the event

•Volleyball: high

•Wrestling: high

•Softball: high

•Cross country: low

Visual acuity

This is how well an athlete can see and how that factors into a sport. The commission says that those born male have a competitive advantage with better sight — which they say could aid transgender girls particularly in lacrosse, tennis and softball.

•Basketball: medium

•Golf: medium

•Lacrosse: medium to high

•Soccer: medium

•Swimming: low

•Tennis: high

•Track and field: low

•Volleyball: medium

•Wrestling: low

•Softball: high

•Cross country: low

Contact

Commission members felt that sports with more contact between players — soccer, basketball and wrestling — would present more risk for harm for those born female when they are competing against a transgender girl.

•Basketball: high

•Golf: low

•Lacrosse: low

•Soccer: high

•Swimming: low

•Tennis: low

•Track and field: low

•Volleyball: medium

•Wrestling: high

•Softball: medium

•Cross country: low