John Parks, a track and field coach in Oregon, said the school district overseeing Lake Oswego High School fired him after he sent a letter to state officials concerning laws related to transgender athletes.
Parks told KATU that he addressed two letters to a high-ranking official with the Oregon Student Activities Association.
He also sent letters to state Sen. Rob Wagner, including one last month after Oregon’s state championships. In the letters, Parks argued that the state’s laws, as currently constructed, do a disservice to girls’ sports.
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A transgender athlete won a race in Oregon recently. (Fox News)
Parks appeared to reference the International Olympic Committee’s hormone testing mandates. The requirements for hormone testing vary across different sports leagues, committees and organizations.
TRANSGENDER HIGH SCHOOL RUNNER IN WASHINGTON WINS STATE TITLE IN GIRLS 400-METER DASH
“The OSAA competition rules need to be aligned with what the rest of the world competes under,” Parks wrote in the letter addressed to Wagner. “My proposal to encourage transgender participation is to offer an open division that is so named so it doesn’t identify or discriminate but offers an opportunity to participate.”
Hurdles at a track and field event. (C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
While Parks raised concerns over laws that offer protections for athletes who seek to compete against the gender they personally identify with, he also said he is not calling for the complete exclusion of transgender athletes.
Parks recalled watching fans at the state championship direct their displeasure toward a transgender athlete who participated in a girls’ event.
“I want them to be able to participate where they’re not ‘booed,'” Parks said.
An athlete prepares to compete in the men’s 4×100-meter relay in Austin, Texas. (C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Earlier this week, a Lake Oswego School District spokesperson confirmed that Parks was no longer employed by the district. The school district stopped short of going into the circumstances surrounding Parks’ separation.
“We do not discuss personnel matters,” Mary Kay Larson, director of communications at Lake Oswego School District, said in a statement.
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Parks plans to appeal his termination.
“I’m going to fight now because I got wronged,” he told the news station. “I… am fighting for girls, I’m fighting for female sports, and I’m fighting that it be fair for everybody.”
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