A Massachusetts high school is refusing to play another school’s girls’ field hockey team due to biological male players on its roster.
The Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District released a statement to media members on Tuesday saying that they’re forfeiting the girls’ field hockey game against Somerset Berkley Regional High School.
The decision to forfeit, which came after coaches and team captains convened on the matter, comes after a new policy that was put in place allowing players and/or coaches to opt out of any games or competitions against an opposing team that "includes a member of the opposite sex."
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"In accordance with School Committee Police JJIB – Interscholastic Athletics, whose updates were approved by the Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School Committee on June 25, 2024, the District has notified Somerset Berkley Regional High School that we will be forfeiting the Field Hockey contest scheduled for September 17," the school district’s statement read.
"Our Field Hockey coaches and captains made this decision, and we notified our opponent accordingly," the statement continued. "The District supports this decision as there are times where we have to place a higher value on safety than on victory. We understand this forfeit will impact our chances for a league championship and possibly playoff eligibility, but we remain hopeful that other schools consider following suit to achieve safety and promote fair competition for female athletes."
This decision by the coaches and captains is also impacted by what occurred last year during a game between Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School and Swampscott High School.
A girl on Dighton-Rehoboth suffered "significant facial and dental injuries" that "required hospitalization" after being hit in the face by a shot from a biological male from Swampscott.
It led field hockey captain Kelsey Bain to write a letter to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA), calling on the organization to change its policy in the wake of the incident.
"There is likely more interest, but the stigma of boys playing on a girl’s team is probably a deterrent," Bain wrote in the letter after previously writing the MIAA "needs to do better."
"I am sure school districts can institute co-op teams to create further opportunities for males to play in their own division, which I assume you are already aware of because, under rule 34 of the MIAA handbook, there is a division for boys’ field hockey listed under the Fall Sports category.
"You have a chance to change the negative publicity the MIAA has been receiving due to the incident that happened on Thursday night by moving forward with the proposal for a seven versus seven boys league."
Bain also cited an article from the New Boston Post, which reported 41 boys playing on girls’ field hockey teams during the 2019-20 school year.
"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. The traumatic event sheds light on the rules and regulations of male athletes participating in women’s sports."
The MIAA released a statement at the time saying it does "understand" safety concerns, but inclusion trumps them.
"We respect and understand the complexity and concerns that exist regarding student safety. However, student safety has not been a successful defense to excluding students of one gender from participating on teams of the opposite gender," the MIAA said in a statement. "The arguments generally fail due to the lack of correlation between injuries and mixed-gender teams."
Bain had a response to the MIAA’s statement.
"We all witnessed the substantial damage that a male has the ability to cause against a female during a game," Bain wrote. "How much longer does the MIAA plan on using girls as statistical data points before they realize that boys do not belong in girls’ sports? Twenty injuries? One hundred? Death?"
Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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