Another school girls’ sports team opted to forfeit a game rather than put its members at risk facing an opposing team with a “transgender” member who is actually a boy, this time in Massachusetts.
The College Fix reported that the girls’ field hockey team at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School is forgoing a planned match against Somerset-Berkely Regional High School, citing the latter team having a biologically male player.
Dighton-Rehoboth superintendent Bill Runey defended the choice to “place a higher value on safety than on victory,” even at the potential cost of “chances for a league championship and possibly playoff eligibility,” but expressed hope for their example making “other schools consider following suit to achieve safety and promote fair competition for female athletes.”
The danger is no hypothetical for this particular community; last year, a female Dighton-Rehoboth field hockey player was “severely injured” by a gender-confused boy on the opposing Swampscott High School team, but Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) assistant director Sherry Bryant insisted at the time the association’s “hands were tied because of lawsuits.”
“I told her, ‘You’re telling me, Title IX allows players of the opposite sex on what are typically single-sex teams, but what are the implications of a girl who does not get as much playing time or gets cut because someone who is bigger and stronger, like most males are, takes her playing time or gets her cut?’” Runey recalled.
“I would sincerely hope the MIAA would respect our position not to play in a particular game and not compound the problem with any other consequence,” he added.
Mandatory inclusion of gender-confused individuals in opposite-sex sports is promoted as a matter of “inclusivity,” but critics note that indulging “transgender” athletes undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, thereby depriving female athletes of recognition and professional or academic opportunities as well as undermining female players’ basic safety and privacy rights by forcing them to share showers and changing areas with members of the opposite sex.
There have been numerous high-profile examples in recent years of men winning women’s competitions, and research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be fully negated by hormone suppression.
In a 2019 paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men (do) not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to (below International Olympic Committee guidelines) for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered by hormone therapy;” therefore, “the advantage to transwomen (biological men) afforded by the (International Olympic Committee) guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”
Both aspects of the controversy have been highlighted by former University of Pennsylvania swimmer William “Lia” Thomas, who reportedly retains male genitalia and is still attracted to women yet “identifies” as female and lesbian. Thomas quickly started dominating women’s swimming after switching from the men’s team and caused his female teammates unrest due to sharing lockers with them. Yet the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) reportedly pressured swimmers and their parents against speaking out.
Last year, the Vermont Principals’ Association banned Mid-Vermont Christian School from all athletic events over a similar decision to protect members of its girls’ basketball team.