TAMPA, Fla. — Florida recently made headlines after the state's high school athletic association attempted to update its physical evaluation form.
All student-athletes statewide must fill out a physical evaluation form before they can play a sport; however, the form included personal questions about female menstrual cycles.
On Thursday, the Florida High School Athletic Association held an emergency meeting where the board of directors voted to remove some questions from the form.
ABC Action News anchor went through the physical forms for all 50 states to see what was required on each form.
Here are some things we discovered:
Michigan was the only state, besides Florida, to list the questions as “optional.”
Prior to the Florida High School Athletic Association meeting, Connecticut was the only state that did not have the question listed at all. The state recently removed it.
Although the questions regarding menstruation are asked on most forms, it is only supposed to be for the child’s doctor.
Many states use the form created by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
The questions for “Females Only” are on the form, but at the top, in fine print, it says, "This form should be placed into the athlete's medical file, and this should not be shared with schools or sports organizations."
The AAP recommends that menstruation data be collected to help medical providers evaluate students.
The information would be part of “standard elements important to consider in evaluating the patient’s eligibility to participate in sports."
A few more points of interest are that the state of Texas is the only state to have questions specific for both males and females.
At the same time, Oklahoma has a separate form that needs to be filled out acknowledging the child’s sex at birth.
