New Hanover County school board reverses middle school trans-inclusive athletic policy

The New Hanover County Board of Education voted 4-3 on February 7, 2023, to reverse a 2021 policy that had allowed transgender and nonbinary middle school students to play on the athletic team matching their gender identity. The new policy, approved by board members Pat Bradford, Melissa Mason, Josie Barnhart and chairman Pete Wildeboer, requires middle schoolers to compete on teams "consistent with the gender on the student's birth certificate unless in violation of North Carolina state law," according to WECT and public-radio coverage from WHQR and Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR). Board members Hugh McManus, Stephanie Walker and Stephanie Kraybill voted against the change.

The vote followed a lengthy, heavily attended board meeting in Wilmington. WHQR and BPR reported that the district's public sign-up system for the meeting's Call to the Audience filled its 30 pre-registered speaking slots within three minutes, and the district manually closed registration after roughly 50 people had signed up; 55 people ultimately spoke. The crowd included LGBTQ advocates, parents, faith leaders, and members of Moms for Liberty and the Proud Boys, both outlets reported. WECT and WHQR/BPR reported the board consulted its attorney in a closed session — WHQR/BPR put the session at roughly 45 minutes — before returning to vote, after earlier motions on the policy had been defeated.

Accounts of the meeting's tone converge on it being contentious, though the outlets emphasize different details. WHQR and BPR both reported that approximately two dozen Proud Boys attended, largely standing at the back of the room, and that one member was escorted out after an altercation with an LGBTQ advocate, with no arrests made; those two reports also describe a larger-than-normal law enforcement presence and the meeting being briefly halted amid the commotion. WECT's account, drawn from the same evening, did not detail the escorted-out incident in the material reviewed for this article, focusing instead on the board's internal debate and the closed-session consultation with counsel. Where the length of the incident or law enforcement's exact role is described only in the WHQR/BPR account, that detail should be read as reported by those outlets specifically.

What the policy change does

The board's action replaced what had been Policy 3620, according to WECT. Under the 2021 version, transgender and nonbinary students could join the middle school team that matched their gender identity, a policy WHQR and BPR both described as having drawn no complaints during its implementation, a point Board member Stephanie Walker raised in voicing her opposition to overturning it. The replacement policy instead ties middle school team eligibility to the sex listed on a student's birth certificate, with an exception if that would violate state law. Rather than take effect immediately, the board set implementation for the start of the 2023-2024 school year; Hugh McManus, who voted against the change, still called even that delayed timeline "pretty low," per WECT.

The framing on both sides

Supporters of the change argued the prior policy created competitive inequities. Dr. John Zino, a part-time University of North Carolina Wilmington professor who spoke at the meeting, said "there may be circumstances under which differences in biological sex could matter and could result in inequality," according to WHQR and BPR's reporting. Board member Josie Barnhart, who voted for the new policy, cited fairness concerns drawn from her own coaching experience, per BPR.

Opponents framed the reversal as targeting a small number of students without evidence of a problem. A transgender student addressed board member Melissa Mason directly, saying, according to BPR, "The fear you express for children is the fear I a transgender student face every single day." Caroline Morin, executive director of the LGBTQ Center of Cape Fear Coast, urged the board to weigh the change's effect on student well-being, while Veronica Mac-Laurin Brown, a former school board candidate, told reporters "I felt that there was no humanity in that conversation." On the board itself, Stephanie Walker and Stephanie Kraybill both raised concerns that the new policy could violate Title IX and expose the district to lawsuits; Kraybill had sought to postpone the vote pending Title IX training, WECT reported, before that motion and others were defeated ahead of the board's closed-session consultation with legal counsel.

What remains unresolved

The reporting reviewed for this article does not establish the outcome of the Title IX concerns board members raised, nor whether the district faced any subsequent legal challenge over the new policy once it took effect for the 2023-2024 school year. Advocacy reaction was swift — Equality North Carolina publicly denounced the reversal the same day, per its own statement circulated alongside the news coverage — but this account does not attempt to trace the policy's status or any litigation beyond the February 7, 2023 vote itself, since that would require sources not retrieved in this session.

US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by WECT, WHQR and Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR). It restores a story originally published on this site in February 2023; figures are as reported at the time.