As more and more transgender athletes enter girl’s sports, so does the safety concerns for biological girls playing them.
A Massachusetts high school, the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell, girls’ basketball team was forced to forfeit their game for safety issues and players fears of getting injured, as they watched three of their teammates getting injured by a transgender player.
The school defended the coach’s decision to forfeit stating, “The bench was already depleted going into the game with the 12-player roster having four players unable to play. When the coach saw three more go down in the first half leaving him with five players, he made the call to end the game early… Once the third was injured, the remaining five expressed concern to him about continuing to play. The players feared getting injured and not being able to compete in the playoffs. In an effort to maintain safety for his team, he decided to forfeit.”
The school they were playing, KIPP Massachusetts, also defended their school in a statement saying, “The vision of KIPP Massachusetts is that every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities. To do this, we work to create joyful and identity-affirming schools for our students and prioritize maintaining student and staff safety above everything else… We also support state laws and regulations, which provide students with the right to participate in all school extracurricular activities and sports based on their gender identity or expression. We condemn harmful comments being made online toward members of our community, and will continue to let the vision, mission and principles of our organization guide our actions.”
Section 43.3.1 in the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s handbook says, “A student shall not be excluded from participation on a gender-specific sports team that is consistent with the student’s bona fide gender identity.”
The KIPP Massachusetts biological male player, who identifies as a female, is over 6 feet tall and has facial hair.
By - FZ
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