This article is about a high school boy who wants to play on his school’s field hockey team. He’s a skilled-enough player to make the varsity, which is not in dispute—he’s got a good chance to make the U.S. Men’s field hockey team one day. And he’s 5’3", and 120 lbs., IIRC, so he’s not much bigger than the girls.
So if girls can play Little League, and wrestle on their high school teams (including against boys) and play football and ice hockey on high school teams, it seems to me that this boy should be allowed to play field hockey. I played field hockey myself in high school (not on a good team, if that makes any difference) and I wouldn’t have minded playing against him.
I think it’s fine. At the pre-college level, you’re going to have girls that a super-developed and amazing at their sport and not every team can have one. If this kid is a notch above the other players in skill, even because he’s male, that’s just too bad.
However being that this is a parochial school (I think?) they should be able to make their own rules. Or if the league is all parochial schools. If it were a league of public schools I’d say there’s no question - let him play.
Boys, especially in late HS, tend to be more explosively athletic than girls. Faster, stronger, larger, etc.
So, when you allow boys to play on the girl’s Field Hockey team, unless you artificially restrict access, it’s easy to see how the team could become an all-boys team, or at least predominately boys, if the interest were there.
Sure, this boy may not be significantly larger/better than the girls, but that’s not how to make the decision, because you’re then going to have to tell a different boy that he can’t play because he’s 6’ 190lbs, and he’s just too good at the sport.
Since men and boys are more athletically capable, it makes sense for their sports to be ‘open’ and the girls sports to be ‘closed’. Opening the baseball team to girls isn’t going to throw the balance of the team/league.
The problem with boys on a girls’ field hockey team is, they’re usually “that much stronger” to the point where the ball is now a weapon - especially from a setup shot like a penalty corner.
This has been a problem ever since Title IX was enacted and somebody realized that it works both ways. I have heard that some states have a rule where an all-girls team can refuse to play a team with any boys on it and it doesn’t go into the books as a forfeit.
Meanwhile, I assume most of you have heard the story of the boy whose school didn’t have boys’ swimming, so he’s on his school’s girls’ swim team, and ended up competing in a Massachusetts regional girls’ swim meet, where he broke the meet record (held by a girl, of course) for the 50m freestyle by about a full second - and it goes into the books as the meet record.
California gets around these problems in two ways. First, while a girl can play on a boys’ team in a sport where the school doesn’t have a girls’ team (but, on the other hand, cannot play on one that does), a boy cannot play on a girls’ team in a sport without a boys’ team unless the girl/boy ratio among athletes exceeds the ratio among students, which is almost never the case in schools that have football. Second, if a girl wants to play on a boys’ team in a “non-team” sport (track, cross country, swimming, golf, tennis, badminton, wrestling), she can compete either in the girls’ sectional tournament as an individual, or the boys’ tournament as part of the team.
I suppose this specific case can be adjudicated by people more familiar with the circumstances, but in general boys should not play girls sports. I think people greatly underestimate the talent and physical differences between boys and girls (and men and women) in competitive sports. The US Women’s National Soccer team, arguably the best in the world, has lost multiple times to U-15 boys soccer teams. The US Women’s hockey team has lost to similarly aged boys. There are a number of reasons for this, but in general, boys shouldn’t exploit those differences by playing with girls.
I think they should let him have the opportunity, particularly if there is not a similar league for boys where he could get similar experience.
If it turned out that he “plays too rough” or is a source or target for harassment, then the powers that be could reassess things occasionally, but I think it would most likely be fine, and beneficial to all parties.
Boys are way, way better athletes than girls once puberty hits. Even at 120 pounds, he’s going to have a significant edge on most girls and it’ll become a bigger edge as he grows. The reason we split males and females in sports is not just random shitting around. We do it so girls and women have a chance. If we had one team for both, the girls wouldn’t have a hope in hell in most sports.
The absolutely inevitable result of what you are proposing will be that no girls will play field hockey. In almost any high school of any significant size, were the positions on the field hockey team open to both boys and girls, the number of girls who would be good enough to be on the squad, given fair and honest tryouts, would be zero.
In the VERY rare cases where a girl is good enough post-puberty to compete with boys well enough to get on a boys’ team, we aren’t concerned because, frankly, it’s just not going to make any sort of difference to men’s sport. The number of girls that good is trivial; a good high school boys’ hockey team would beat the U.S. Olympic women’s team. A rare, rare exception isn’t a challenge to the fairness of sport.
I’ll agree with others in saying that I don’t think this works. By high school (indeed, after puberty) the differences between males and females require a special female-only category to avoid having 99% male participation in all top teams in essentially all sports (even including chess).
It’s clear (to me at least) that there should not be a “boys only” category: if a girl is able to make any team on merit, she should absolutely be allowed to. But there should certainly be a “two X chromosomes” category - without this, girls are effectively excluded.
Those advocating that boys not be allowed to play on a girls team because of the genetics involved, what about those of us boys at a disadvantage because of genetics? Should we get our own league, too?
I totally agree that almost no girls have a chance of playing against boys in most sports. That is also true for a significant portion of boys, but I don’t hear anyone advocating that the high percentage of boys who are equally genetically at a disadvantage be given their own league. Why?
A very large percentage of boys would never win, never be competitive nor even get the opportunity to compete because of genetics. Girls get a different league or competition because of genetics.
Girls are at a genetic disadvantage, just like most boys. Because we classify their genetic disadvantage differently, they get a league of their own and opportunities to compete. Boys with a genetic disadvantage are patted on the head and told to go find a nice chess game.
It isn’t just a matter of training, either. You can’t train to be 5’10".
This is strictly a philosophical discussion. The VAST majority of us, boys and girls, face the reality we will never be competitive nor be allowed to even try in most activities. But no one is advocating that the very large majority of us that are excluded from these things are harmed because of that. Why are girls singled out as needing that availability but these rest of the genetically inferior of us aren’t?
Don’t forget that men’s boxing and wrestling have weight classes. It’s done for similar reasons; safety, making fights more satisfying for spectators, etc.
That’s not really true though. There are a lot of recreational and competitive leagues in a variety of sports that those who lack the genetics for the top tier leagues can participate in.
Title IX has mandated that girls be given as many opportunities as boys at a collegiate level. There are not the legally mandated opportunities for those who lack the genetics to compete at a collegiate level. Unless those genetics are related to the 23rd chromosome pair.
Why don’t you tell the girls the same thing you just said here?