A Florida high school volleyball coach who was removed for allowing a transgender girl to play on the varsity female squad said he had no clue she had transitioned.
Five Monarch High School staffers — including principal James Cecil — were suspended after a tipster told local officials that the Coconut Grove school was allowing a biological male to compete as a female in violation of state law.
Former coach Alex Burgess told local outlets that he was unaware of the student’s birth sex and only found out after an investigation was launched late last month.
The sophomore — who began taking hormone blockers at age 11 — had been on the team for the past two years.
“I had no clue,” Burgess told the Miami Herald Monday.
“I guess there was some people who already knew, but I guess whoever came in to kind of investigate kind of pointed fingers at her.”
Meanwhile, the student’s irate mother revealed herself publicly Monday as one of the five ousted staffers.
“A lot of things were taken from my family this week — our privacy, sense of safety, and right to self-determination,” Jessica Norton said in a statement released by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group.
“There is a long history in this country of outing people against their will — forced outing, particularly of a child, is a direct attempt to endanger the person being outed.”
In addition to Cecil, Burgess and Norton, assistant principal Kenneth May and athletic director Dione Hester were also suspended.
The volleyball season was canceled outright as the probe continues.
Norton filed a 2021 lawsuit on behalf of her child that sought to allow her to compete on the girl’s team in high school despite her being born a male.
The case argued that a Florida law prohibiting the practice was unconstitutional, but was eventually struck down by a federal judge.
The suit states that she “presented” as a female beginning in preschool.
“As early as three years old, —- exhibited behavior that traditionally is associated with being a girl and would insist on wearing clothes and colors (pink) that girls wore,” the suit states. “She saw herself as a girl and conveyed that to her parents in clear terms. At five or six, her parents realized, based on —-’s behavior and statements, that their daughter was transgender.”
She soon developed a passion for soccer, and competed on girls’ teams throughout middle school, according to the suit.
“At age 11, at the recommendation of her endocrinologist, she began hormone blockers to stop testosterone,” the case states. “This year, under medical supervision, she began receiving estrogen, and will continue to do so for the rest of her life. This will allow her to live as the girl/woman that she is.”
Irate students staged a walkout at the school last week to protest the sanctioning of their teachers and administrators, arguing that the teen should be allowed to compete as a girl.
A Broward County School District source told The Post Tuesday that the teen’s inclusion on the team was an inarguable violation of Florida law.
“There’s no way around it,” the member said. “It’s hard to understand how this happened. All I know is that it’s chaos right now. A lot of anger and a lot of confusion.”
