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Resident urges North Providence schools to remove district's transgender protocol, cites Title IX and interscholastic rulings
Summary
At the school committee meeting a public commenter, identified as Mister Caradillo, asserted the district's transgender/gender nonconforming student protocol violates Title IX and called for separate teams for biological males and females unless a team is advertised as coed. The committee did not take action during the meeting.
Mister Caradillo addressed the North Providence School Committee during the public comment period and urged the district to remove its transgender and gender nonconforming student protocol, saying it conflicts with federal Title IX requirements and leaves girls at an "unfair, unsafe, and unlawful" competitive disadvantage.
"We simply cannot allow our kids, especially our girls, to be placed in unsafe, uncomfortable, unlawful, and unfair positions," Caradillo said, urging the committee to strike the current protocol and require separate boys' and girls'teams for middle and high school athletics unless a team is explicitly designated as coed.
Caradillo said the Rhode Island Interscholastic League shifted eligibility decisions to school principals and cited two games on Sept. 20 and Oct. 7 in which North Providence's girls soccer team faced Moses Brown, which he said had a "biological boy" on the roster; both games, he said, ended in ties. He argued the district has an obligation under RIL policy (article and section references cited by the speaker) to ensure health, welfare and eligibility proof by principals.
Chairman Plata acknowledged the comment and returned the meeting to the published agenda; no committee motion or staff direction responding to the specific allegations was recorded during the meeting.
Authorities referenced in the public comment include Title IX (federal statute) and the Rhode Island Interscholastic League's eligibility policies as cited by the speaker; the committee did not provide a legal determination at the meeting.
The committee did not vote on any change to district policy at this meeting. Any formal review or revision of district protocols would require staff follow-up, agenda placement, and a subsequent committee action.
