The Campus Recreation Student Advisory Council (CRSAC) plans to revise guidelines for transgender students looking to participate in Campus Recreation activities.

“I don’t feel we have adequate policies or stated rules that address transgender participation,” said Scott Harrison, the assistant director of Campus Recreation.

According to Harrison, no transgender students have approached the campus recreation staff regarding the transgender intramural guidelines. However, Harrison plans to be proactive and recognizes the need for improvement.

“Our current policy states that students [can] participate in either a single gendered league and one co-rec league,” Harrison said. “We feel as though we are not doing the best we can to include guidelines for those who do not fit within the [gender] binary.”

Since last fall, the criteria for transgender intramural participants has been a developing project.

“We want to be sensitive to the fact that gender identity is not as simple as some of our rules have traditionally presented,” Harrison said. “We want to ensure we are doing everything possible to adopt guidelines for participation that creates a welcoming environment for all transgender students.”

Currently, the CRSAC makes recommendations regarding Campus Recreation services, intramural sports and programs. The council is working to adopt a policy regarding gender designation that aligns with the National Intramural Sports Association (NIRSA).

The NIRSA policy is geared toward providing ​transgender students ​the ability to ​play in the intramural leagues that match their gender identity.

Students are not required to undergo hormone treatment, sex-reassignment surgery or a legal order to change their gender identity, according to NIRSA’s updated policies and tournament materials.

For years, CRSAC discussions in the training room of Lee Hall have cleared a path for student involvement, but now the council recognizes that prior initiatives need to be updated for inclusive and non-binary strategies.

“The old process of saying ‘I identify as a male athlete’ or a ‘female’ is, for lack of better words, an outdated process and it’s not the most inclusive,” Harrison said. “We are trying to ensure our policies communicate to transgender students that they choose what gender they identify with​, as it pertains to intramural participation and they are not bound by birth or student records​.”

According to Harrison, this policy would encourage transgender students to communicate to Campus Recreation staff prior to participating in intramural sports if their self-identification is different than their school or birth records.

“For a number of years I have thought about what we would do in that sort of circumstance,” Harrison said. “In the case of transgender students we can do more by ​​publishing guidelines that help students that are hesitant to participate because they are not sure how they will be received.”

Gage McGill, a member of the Oswego State Pride Alliance, said transgender students are often tangled between their gender identity and regulations for student athletes.

“Being transgender and in sports, be it a team or open rec, can be hard,” McGill said. “ I know transgender people who have quit doing sports after coming to college because they felt ostracized.”

In response to this change, the Executive Board of the Oswego Pride Alliance said, “This is important for transgender students because it gives them a place where they can safely play sports within their preferred gender identity. The negative effects of gender discrimination may completely dissuade trans students from playing a sport that they have loved and played for many years.”

The code prevents discrimination of transgender students who may be challenged by their peers during athletic activities.

According to Harrison, similar policies for transgender athletes are in place at the University of Massachusetts AmHerst and are being implemented at SUNY Cortland.

In late April, CRSAC plans to propose transgender guidelines to the director of Campus Recreation, Sandra Keenan Jeffers. The council is ​hopeful that new guidelines for intramural participation will be implemented before next fall.