Teen births hit a record low last year, according to a CDC report released Tuesday, and the narrative quickly taking hold in the media is that we have the recession to thank. It's a surprising idea, that teenagers are keeping it in their pants because a baby isn't a prudent choice in the current economic environment. Foresight isn't what we expect from those creatures of impulse -- and, indeed, when is a baby a practical economic choice for a teen? It also struck me that the teen birth rate isn't the same as the teen pregnancy rate, if you catch my drift (my drift being ... abortion). I took my questions to a couple of experts in hopes of some clarity. 
 
 "The recession is everyone's favorite causal explanation for things happening right now," said Rachel Jones of the Guttmacher Institute. "Other than people conjecturing, there is no evidence that the recession has had a direct impact on teen sexual behaviors." What we do know, however, is that contraceptive use increased among teens between 2007 and 2009. "We don't know the reason for that increase," she explains, and, in fact, it could be the recession -- but, again, the truth is we just don't know. Her no-nonsense take: "It seems if we want to look for reasons for patterns in teen birth rates, [birth control use] is the one indicator that offers us practical insights." 
 
 Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy shared my initial skepticism about the economic explanation: "I just simply do not know many 16-year-olds who are thinking about bank statements when they hop in the sack." But he pointed out that while roughly eight out of 10 teen pregnancies are unplanned, "there is a mushy middle ground [of teens who] say, 'Well, yeah, I wouldn't want to get pregnant, but it wouldn't be the worst thing that happened.'" Call it the "mush" factor: Perhaps those ambivalent teens were swayed by firsthand experience of the economic meltdown: "Their parents might be struggling to make house payments," he said. "They might know neighbors who have lost jobs and can't find jobs." 
 
 As for the question of whether a decrease in teen births might be linked to an increase in teen abortions, there is a bummer of a data lag: Guttmacher isn't releasing 2008 stats on pregnancy terminations until early next year. However, says Albert, "if the past is prologue, the answer is probably no. What we have seen over the past two decades is that teen birth rates have gone down because the underlying pregnancy rate has gone down. Put another way, all three -- pregnancy, abortion, birth -- all tended to be going down at the same time." Jones agrees: "Teen births and abortions seem to follow the same trajectory," she said. "We haven't seen any indicators that abortions have gone a different direction than births." 
 
 You might recall that there was a troubling and unexplained rise in the teen birth rate in 2006 and 2007. Albert says the 2009 finding -- which followed a 2008 decrease -- suggests the uptick was "an abnormal blip" and that we're now "resuming a nearly two decade trend toward fewer teen pregnancies and fewer births." Inexplicably, some abstinence advocates think this report has "exonerated their approach," reports the Washington Post. Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association told the paper, "This latest evidence shows that teen behaviors increasingly mirror the skills they are taught in a successful abstinence education program." Except that ... it doesn't. Says Guttmacher's Rachel Jones, "The levels of teen sexual activity haven't changed, which would suggest that there isn't more abstinence out there -- but there was a change in contraceptive use." ||||| Text size Decrease Increase 
 
 Kye Allums, left, comes out (Photo: Associated Press) 
 
 This season, the George Washington University women's basketball team will welcome a man on the court. On Nov. 13, Junior guard Kye Allums, formerly Kay-Kay, could become the first publicly transgender person to play Division 1 NCAA basketball. 
 
 Allums joined the women's team in 2008 as a freshman; he came out as as man to his teammates during his sophomore year. Last summer, Allums disclosed his gender identity to the team's head coach, Mike Bozeman, and arranged to officially come out on the team this season. 
 
 Both Bozeman and the George Washington University have released statements in support of Allums, but the support of transgender athletes within the NCAA remains largely untested. The athletic association currently defers to a student's state-issued ID in order to determine a player's gender. That's not too much of a problem for a guy like Allums, who wants to continue to play on a team consistent with his sex at birth. But the policy could end up posing difficulties for trans men and women athletes who want to play on teams consistent with their outward gender identities. 
 
 In October, the National Center for Lesbian Rights released a study proposing new model policies for dealing with transgender athletes. The NCLR suggests that schools and athletic associations draft rules that "focus on maximizing inclusiveness, rather than restricting students’ opportunities to participate based on their gender identity or expression." 
 
 Allums plans on undergoing sex-reassignment surgery next summer, but he's holding off on one aspect of his physical transition until he finishes his senior season: taking masculine hormones would certainly disqualify Allums from the sport. He plans on starting the treatments in April of 2012.
– When George Washington University’s basketball season begins later this month, an openly transgender player will play on the women’s team for the first time in Division I. Kye Allums (formerly Kay-Kay) has played for the team since 2008. Teammates knew Allums then as female, but she subsequently came out to the team as a man, TBD reports. The student-athlete has not yet started taking testosterone (which would disqualify Allums from the women's team) or undergone sex-reassignment surgery. “Luckily, Allums' coach and teammates are supportive of his transition—but it will be interesting to see how the NCAA handles the situation,” writes Tracy Clark-Flory on Salon. “It has no official policy on transgender athletes, other than to go by the student's gender according to their state ID.” That’s not a problem for Allums, who wants to continue playing for the women’s team, but it could pose a problem for other transgender athletes. Click here for more.