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Outsports
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Trans Sporter Room Ep125 -- Kyla Paterson: A Dispatch From The Midwestern Front
1 hour 3 minutes Posted Mar 2, 2022 at 1:33 pm.
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Sports history and the modern reality of the current anti-trans legislation fight collide in a state where women's sport mattered for decades before Title IX.

Since 1920, girl's high school athletics was administered by the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. The IGHSAU is recognized as one of the oldest confederations dedicated to opening doors in sports for girls in the world.

It began with its well-known, and well-attended annual state girls high school basketball tournament, but it grew over the decades to build a full slate of competition for Iowa girls pre-dating the passage of Title IX

“I take a lot of pride that every girl walks down every main street in every town in Iowa just as tall as the boy.” -- IGHSAU executive secretary/legend E. Wayne Cooley Jr., 2002

In 2014, IGHSAU was among the first states in the USA to form policy for the inclusion of transgender girls into high school sport. Again, Iowa leading the way.

The next year, a soccer player name Kyla Paterson donned the colors of Iowa City High and proudly hit the pitch as who she is.

That legacy is under fire right now as the Hawkeye State is one of more than 30 debating a ban on transgender students in scholastic sports. The measure, HF2416 is now on the floor of the state senate, and step away from the governor's desk.

This week Karleigh Webb sits down with Paterson, now a budding activist but a then a trailblazer in high school, as we hear a story from one of the frontlines of the current fight raging from Maine to Maui.

Also this week:

  • Sports responds to the Ukraine crisis
  • WNBA Charter-Gate?
  • When lobbying goes wrong

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