The girls field hockey team at a Massachusetts high school has forfeited a game against a rival due to the participation of a biological male on its team.
Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School noted it will not play Somerset-Berkely Regional HS in a match slated for September 17, opting to choose “safety over playing,” according to the Fall River Reporter.
Dighton-Rehoboth Superintendent Bill Runey said in a statement “there are times where we have to place a higher value on safety than on victory.”
Runey added that the team realizes forfeiting may affect “chances for a league championship and possibly playoff eligibility,” but hopes “other schools consider following suit to achieve safety and promote fair competition for female athletes.”
The Sun Chronicle reports the Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School Committee unanimously agreed in June to let coaches and students to back out of competing against teams with “athletes of the opposite sex.”
Committee Chair Christopher Andrade said in an email that no student athlete would be disciplined for refusing to participate in such a situation.
Andrade criticized the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association for insufficiently protecting girls in sports where boys are allowed to play.
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After a (female) field hockey player from Dighton-Rehoboth HS was “severely injured” in a playoff match by a male competitor from Swampscott High School a year ago, Superintendent Runey reached out to MIAA Assistant Director Sherry Bryant about needed changes to its policy, according to the Chronicle report.
Bryant told him the association’s “hands were tied because of lawsuits.”
Runey (pictured) said “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?’”
Even though students and coaches won’t be penalized for forfeiting games at the school level, Runey acknowledged there may be penalties handed down from the state.
“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 said.
Dighton-Rehoboth School Committee member Katie Ferreira-Aubin said the issue “is NOT about sexuality or trans children. It’s about biology. Nothing more, nothing less.”
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IMAGES: Silvia Turra/Shutterstock.com; Bill Runey/X
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