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‘When Was Your Most Recent Period?’: Student Athletes in Florida May Be Required to Share Menstrual History
For the past two decades teenaged women participating in Florida high school athletics have been asked to submit their menstrual history, including the date of their first period, the date of their last period, and how many periods they have had in the last 12 months. The board of directors of the Florida High School Athletic Association, the organization in charge of coordinating high school athletics in the Sunshine State, will debate later this month if they will make divulging that information mandatory for participating in sports. According to the FHSAA website that board is comprised of 14 men and two women. Not one is a physician or medical professional.
Critics are voicing concerns over a variety of issues, including the right to privacy, the need for the highly personal medical information, who has access to it, how it is stored, and how it could be used against the students, including to determine possible pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, or if the athlete is transgender.
“Many parents and doctors are worried that schools will use the menstrual data to monitor students for late or missed periods, a possible sign of pregnancy, or to out transgender students by watching for girls who don’t get periods or boys who do,” The New Republic reports, calling it “a terrifying glimpse of our dystopian post-Roe world.”
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The three-page form, called the Preparticipation Physical Evaluation, asks:
“When was your first menstrual period?” “When was your most recent menstrual period? “How much time do you usually have from the start of one period to the start of another?” “How many periods have you had in the last year? and “What was the longest time between periods in the last year?”
A draft form slightly alters the questions, asking instead, “Have you had a menstrual period?” and “How old were you when you had your first menstrual period?” in addition to the other three questions.
While it currently states answering is optional, at the end of this month those questions could become mandatory, although the reason for the possible change has not been disclosed.
Because the information is not being given by the athletes to a physician or other medical professional or organization, the information is not subject to HIPAA regulations. And in some school districts the inform action is stored on a third-party platform, possibly exposing it to other entities.
“This is clearly an effort to further stigmatize and demonize transgender people in sports [and] meant to further exclude people who aren’t assigned female at birth in girls sports,” the president of PRISM, a South Florida nonprofit organization that provides sexual health information to LGBTQ+ youth, Maxx Fenning, told The Tampa Bay Times. “Beyond that, I think there’s concern among LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ [students] alike. This is an extremely invasive mode of gleaning into someone’s reproductive history, which is especially dangerous in this post-Roe world we live in.”
TIME adds that critics “have noted that this policy would be a major challenge for transgender athletes who may have to out themselves with their responses to the questions. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis approved a bill last year—which is currently under legal fire—that bans transgender female students from playing on women and girls’ sports teams.”
According to the fan-checking site Snopes, “these written forms with students’ medical information are submitted to school officials, contrary to a number of other states where only a doctor’s signature is required to clear an athlete for play.”
Snopes adds that “concerns grew as many states worked to criminalize abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and transgender athletes faced scrutiny. In Florida, abortions are banned after 15 weeks, with only a few exceptions.”
“Any forms (physical or digital) could be subpoenaed. Meanwhile, in Palm Beach County, nearly all athlete-registration forms moved online, which meant reproductive data for athletes was being stored by a third-party software company called Aktivate. Other counties were also planning to digitize their forms.”
Last October NBC News reported that an Aktivate spokesperson said a student’s information could be removed but only with parental and school district consent.
Image via Shutterstock
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The Trump Social Security Administration Commissioner says raising the retirement eligibility age for Social Security recipients is being considered by the administration. Democratic lawmakers responded defiantly.
“I think everything’s being considered, will be, will be considered,” Commissioner Frank Bisignano told Fox Business on Friday when asked.
Bisignano insisted that the White House “is completely committed to protect and preserve” Social Security, but that “the generations that are coming in will probably have a difference set of rules than we had.”
Frank Bisignano is a former CEO of a U.S. multinational financial technology company, and appeared on a list of the highest-paid CEOs in the country, according to the AFL-CIO.
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During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed, “I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare and I will not raise the retirement age by one day. Not for one day.”
Critics blasted the development.
“Republicans gave away trillions In tax cuts for the wealthy. Now they are asking Americans to work longer. We won’t stand for it,” wrote U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA).
“Trump’s cronies let the cat out of the bag. They’re ready to raise the retirement age. NOT ON MY WATCH! They want to cut your benefits and hand them over to Wall Street. We’re in a fight to save Social Security, and I’m not backing down. That’s a promise,” declared U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-CT).
Warren Gunnels, Minority Staff Director for the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Ranking Member, Bernie Sanders (I-VT), wrote: “If Bernie’s Social Security bill was signed into law, Social Security would be solvent for the next 75 years, benefits would go up by $2,400 & the bottom 91% of Americans would not pay a penny more in taxes. Instead, Republicans want you to work until you drop dead.”
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Former Secretary of Labor, Professor Robert Reich, added: “A worker making $50,000 a year contributes to Social Security on 100% of their income. A CEO making $20 million a year contributes to Social Security on less than 1% of their income. Instead of raising the retirement age, we should scrap the Social Security tax cap.”
The Social Security tax cap, the amount that is subject to the Social Security tax, is $176,100.
According to Data for Progress, a progressive policy and polling organization, more Americans support lowering the Social Security retirement age than raising it or keeping it the same.
Fox Host: “Would you consider raising the retirement age?”
Trump’s Social Security Administration Commissioner: “I think everything is being considered, yeah.” pic.twitter.com/kdyVlyN7pX
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) September 19, 2025
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President Donald Trump’s new addition to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, Stephen Miran, appeared to try to downplay the significant price increases Americans are seeing at grocery store checkout lines.
“Last month saw the biggest jump in grocery prices in almost three years,” NPR reported on Friday. “A survey this summer by The Associated Press and NORC found the cost of groceries has become a major source of stress for just over half of all Americans — outpacing rent, health care and student debt.”
Last week, Axios reported that grocery inflation is at the highest point “since 2022 as Trump tariffs pile up.”
“Virtually all major grocery categories are now more expensive than they were a year ago, some substantially so,” the news outlet reported. “Coffee is up 20.9% year-over-year, with a 3.1% monthly increase, per CPI. Uncooked beef steaks are up 16.6% year-over-year with a 3.3% monthly bump. While fruits and vegetable overall were up 2.3% year over year, apples rose 9.6% and bananas, 6.6%.”
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NPR also noted that despite “Trump’s promise to lower prices, the overall cost of groceries is higher now than when he was sworn in. The president’s crackdown on illegal immigration — including targeting people who pick and process our food — could add to upward pressure on prices. Trump’s tariffs are also contributing to higher prices for imported staples like bananas and coffee.”
Miran was asked about the price of bananas and coffee, specifically, on Friday during an interview with CNBC.
“But we are seeing prices move up for things like food at the grocery,” the host stated. “I mean, you can’t deny that the rising price of tomatoes or coffee or bananas, the things that we don’t grow here, are going up for consumers.”
Miran’s response: “Oh, there will always be relative price changes.”
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“Relative price changes” is an economic term having to do with supply and demand and other factors.
“There will always be relative price changes, but whether or not it’s inflation that’s macroeconomically significant of the type that monetary policy should respond to is a different question,” Miran concluded.
CNBC reported that Miran told the network “that he doesn’t anticipate President Donald Trump’s tariffs will cause inflation,” and that he “also said he believes Trump’s border policies will give rise to disinflation.”
Host: You can’t deny that the price of tomatoes or coffee or bananas, the things that we don’t grow here, are going up for consumers.
Trump’s Fed Governor: There will always be relative price changes pic.twitter.com/buxQnBujv4
— FactPost (@factpostnews) September 19, 2025
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The White House is now linking comments made by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to what it claims is “dangerous” rhetoric that motivated the shooter who killed conservative commentator and activist Charlie Kirk, despite there being no definitive proof yet of the gunman’s motivations.
According to the Associated Press, the remarks that got Kimmel suspended, amid pressure from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, included:
“The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
“In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”
The AP also reported that “Kimmel said that Trump’s response ‘is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK?'”
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On Friday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told Newsmax, “I think you’re seeing just a general public response to people like Jimmy Kimmel, who tragically is spewing this dangerous rhetoric, all people who spew this dangerous rhetoric, who ultimately drove this deranged killer to take Charlie’s life.”
“I think it’s a reflection of where the public is right now, having this revival of standing for your belief, standing for our First Amendment rights and and the importance of civil dialogue and the right to speak your mind in this country.”
Kelly also said: “Charlie’s tragic death, also ignited, I think, a spark for young people, for all people in this country who are passionate about free speech, who are passionate about civil dialogue, and also faith. Charlie, of course, was a very outspoken proponent of standing in your faith.”
“It’s no question that the person who, the coward that shot and killed Charlie Kirk, was evil, was tragically driven by a lot of this violent, hateful rhetoric coming from the left,” she added.
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Critics blasted Kelly’s remarks.
“The Deputy Press Secretary’s remarks are dripping with hypocrisy,” wrote The Steady State, a group of more than 300 former national security officials. “On one hand, she invokes the First Amendment and the importance of civil dialogue. On the other, she scapegoats Jimmy Kimmel’s comedy as ‘dangerous rhetoric’ that somehow caused a murder? This is the antithesis of free speech.”
“The First Amendment doesn’t exist to protect speech the government likes — it exists precisely to protect speech that offends, critiques, or challenges those in power,” the group added. “By blaming a critic’s words for violence, while celebrating an ally’s words as virtuous, the administration is not defending free speech at all. It’s weaponizing it.”
White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly says “you’re seeing just a general public response to people like Jimmy Kimmel who tragically is spewing this dangerous rhetoric, all people who spew this dangerous rhetoric who ultimately drove this deranged killer to take Charlie’s… pic.twitter.com/MoMgPMn1ju
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 19, 2025
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