Students in Massachusetts are asking the state’s athletic division to review their policy on allowing boys to play sports against girls after a teenage girl was severely injured by a male player in a field hockey meet.
The girl was hit in the face by a ball thrown by a male player. She was hospitalized for “significant facial injuries” and lost two teeth.
This is not an issue of trans students. In Massachusetts, boys are allowed to play in leagues with girls if there is no equivalent league available for them. In this case, the boy was playing in the girls league and a teenage girl was hurt. The girls’ team captain, Kelsey Bain, has appealed to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) to review these rules but they have said they won’t.
“Following the injury, my teammates were sobbing not only in fear for their teammate but also in fear that they had to go back out onto the field and continue a game, playing against a male athlete who hospitalized one of our own,” Bain wrote. “The traumatic event sheds light on the rules and regulations of male athletes participating in women’s sports.”
It begs the question of how severe this injury would have been had a female player thrown that ball. It also begs this question: do you litigate it? If the injured player were my daughter, you’d better believe I would take it to court to force the state to address safety issues for male-to-female contact sports!
