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A parent of a female volleyball player on Monday urged the Trump administration to get involved after a trans athlete shared a locker room with and competed against his daughter in volleyball in a Michigan high school.
“It’s simple, women play women’s sports,” Sean Lechner said in front of a crowd at the press conference on a cold December afternoon.
Sean was joined by his daughter, Briley Lechner, a middle on Monroe High School’s volleyball team, and several other Republican elected officials and political candidates at a podium near city hall to announce a complaint filed with federal authorities.
The complaint addressed players on the Monroe High School volleyball team, including Briley, being forced to compete against and “undress” in the same locker room as a biological male.
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Fox News Digital obtained a copy of Sean’s official complaint, filed with the Department of Education on Dec. 5, 2025, stating that “parents must have confidence that school administrators prioritize the safety, privacy, equitable treatment, and fairness of female athletes.” The complaint was also filed with the Michigan Department of Education, the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA), and Monroe Public Schools. The Michigan Department of Education told OutKick that it “received the complaint and is reviewing it.”
The complaint stated that the students were not aware that they would be sharing a locker room with a transgender athlete.
According to the complaint, “The presence of a male in the girls’ locker room was not disclosed prior to the match, constituting a violation of privacy and bodily integrity protections under Title IX.”
The Department of Education is investigating several schools across the country for Title IX violations related to transgender athletes but none of those investigations involve schools in Michigan. Lechner filed the complaint with hopes to change that.
Lechner’s remarks during the press conference called out Ann Arbor Skyline High School for rostering a biological male athlete on the girls’ high school volleyball team, “placing female athletes in danger and subjecting them to a loss of privacy, safety, and dignity.”
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The Skyline girls volleyball team had the trans athlete in its starting lineup and ended up reaching the Michigan Division 1 state quarterfinals. The athlete earned First Team All-Conference honors.
Under MHSAA guidelines, a transgender athlete who was born male and wants to compete in a high school girls’ team needs to apply for and receive a waiver. The MHSAA confirmed to Fox News Digital that it granted one waiver for eligibility under their transgender student policy, statewide, for the 2025-26 fall sports season.
“We have not and cannot say for which school, or sport, as that would be identifying information, and disregard student privacy laws. The waiver was granted in compliance with applicable state and federal law. The MHSAA is obligated to follow both, even as state law and federal guidance have evolved in recent years, often in competing ways,” an MHSAA spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Laura Perry, a candidate running for Michigan’s 31st State House District, said that the waiver process “must be eliminated because it directly conflicts with federal law.”
Perry told reporters that they are calling on the U.S. Department of Education and the Trump administration to “act swiftly in this manner.”
“Women’s sports must be separated by biological sex. Federal executive order is being ignored,” Perry said.
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“One waiver in Michigan, one displaced female athlete on a varsity roster or a starting lineup, one player of the match taken by a biological male, and one team advancing to the elite eight in the MHSAA tournament because of a male is one too many,” Perry added.
“When we found out weeks after that there was another male in the same locker room as us, as we were changing and also playing against us, it caught everyone off guard,” Briley said at the podium when asked how she felt about the incident by another reporter. “That would have been the last thought because as I was looking at this person, admiring how amazing they were, admiring how high they could jump, I was kind of getting down to myself, like I wonder why I’m not capable of that.”
MHSAA told Fox News Digital that they had conversations with members of the Michigan legislature throughout the fall about this issue.
“From those conversations, we know elected leaders from both parties recognize that the current issues surrounding eligibility and participation of transgender students remain subject to ongoing legal debate. The MHSAA has consistently emphasized that it must follow the law, and when conflicts in law arise, the MHSAA must rely upon the legislature or the courts to provide clarity,” the MHSAA spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The Department of Education, Michigan Department of Education, and Monroe Public Schools did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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