The Tahoe-Truckee school district, which sits on the border of California and Nevada, is moving forward with transitioning its high school athletics programs from Nevada’s governing body to California’s authority.
At the center of this state-mandated move is the difference in gender policies between the two states.
“We are stuck between two different authorities,” said Kerstin Kramer, superintendent of the Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District (TTUSD), during a Dec. 17 school board meeting. “California state law and education code allow sports eligibility for students based on gender expression, and [Nevada] limits eligibility to biological sex.”
For more than 40 years, student athletes in TTUSD have played and competed under the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association (NIAA) despite being located in California. This was primarily due to its location as a mountain community, the proximity to Reno-area teams, and the safer travel logistics of avoiding crossing California’s mountains during winter to compete with valley or coastal schools….