A Massachusetts high school was forced to forfeit a game at halftime after several players were injured — with at least one injury caused by a male player who claims to be female.
According to the Lynn, Massachusetts, Daily Item, a Feb. 8 girl’s basketball game between KIPP Academy in Lynn and the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell ended at halftime after Collegiate Charter bailed out.
The score was 31-14 in favor of KIPP at the time.
“According to multiple sources, KIPP has a male player on its girls basketball roster, despite the school offering a boys program. The player is reported to be more than 6 feet tall with facial hair,” the Daily Item reported.
“KIPP officials refused to confirm the player’s gender identification,” it said. “If the player identifies as female, participation on the girls team would seem to be supported by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, the governing body for high school athletics in the Commonwealth.”
The handbook makes it clear that student-athletes “shall not be excluded from participation on a gender-specific sports team that is consistent with the student’s bona fide gender identity” but that the rule cannot be used simply to game the system for competitive advantage — although the protections it offers against that are slight, indeed.
“When a school district submits a roster to the MIAA, it is verifying that it has determined that the students listed on a gender-specific sports team are eligible to participate either based on the gender listed on their official birth certificate or based on their bona fide gender identity and that no students are included on the roster solely for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage in competitive athletics,” the handbook reads.
“The MIAA shall defer to the determination of the student and the student’s school regarding gender classification.”
The Daily Item reported KIPP had a record of 10-7 with a first-year head coach and the male player on its team and had clinched a spot in the MIAA Division 4 state tournament. Its record last year was 1-19.
While it’s unknown how many of the injuries on the team were caused by the male player, video shared on social media seemed to indicate at least one of them was, showing a significantly taller individual than the rest of the players throwing a player to the ground in an effort to grab the ball — where she stayed, holding her lower back.
Pretty much everyone involved was staying mum on why the forfeit — which officially goes into the books as a 10-0 win for KIPP — really happened.
Kyle Pelczar, Collegiate Charter School of Lowell athletic director, said that when it came to the player in question, the team’s coach “knew going into the game, already, because we had them at home the first game of the year and nothing happened then, so he knew going into the game.”
That game ended with KIPP defeating Collegiate Charter School 36-29 on Dec. 12.
Pelcazar said the coach “felt that his girls were getting injured, basically, all game.”
“He has a playoff game on Monday, so he didn’t want to have any more of his girls go down,” the athletic director said.
KIPP’s athletic director, Anthony Grimaldi, would not entertain any questions regarding whether or not the male player on the girl’s team was the reason for the forfeit.
“KIPP does not wish to make a comment at this time as to why the other team forfeited the game. We are looking forward to our next game,” Grimaldi said.
And Jim Clark, the MIAA’s liaison for tournaments, said that nothing would change going forward into the playoffs.
“They go based on the team that they’re on,” Clark said. “So if they play on the girls team or if they play on the boys team, they’d stay on that team in the tournament.”
However, InsideLowell shared a clip from the game showing one of the injuries.
In the 24-second video posted to YouTube, what appears to be the male player is seen ripping the ball from a Collegiate Charter player as the two battled for a rebound, throwing her to the ground in the process.
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Riley Gaines — a former University of Kentucky swimmer who became an activist for women in sports after having to compete against a man in the women’s NCAA championships — shared the clip Monday on social media along with Collegiate Charter School’s letter on the matter.
The letter explained that the girl’s team had a roster that “was already depleted going into the game.”
“When the coach saw three more girls go down in the first half leaving him with five players, he made the call to end the girl early,” it said. “The upcoming Charter School playoffs were looming, and he needed a healthy and robust bench in four days.”
“A man hitting a woman used to be called domestic abuse. Now it’s called brave,” Gaines said in her post on X.
“Who watches this & actually thinks this is ‘compassionate, kind, and inclusive’?”
Trans-identified male player for Kipp Academy in MA injured 3 girls before half time causing Lowell Collegiate Charter School to forfeit.
A man hitting a woman used to be called domestic abuse. Now it’s called brave.
Who watches this & actually thinks this is “compassionate,… pic.twitter.com/ZLlqYH6iAs
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) February 19, 2024
But remember: If we don’t allow female-identifying males to compete against girls, we’re endangering their lives! That’s at least what former U.S. Women’s National Team soccer player Megan Rapinoe implied in a 2022 interview: “We’re talking about people’s lives. I’m sorry, your kid’s high school volleyball team just isn’t that important. It’s not more important than any one kid’s life.”
It’s the old transgender agenda feint: “Would you rather have a living daughter or a dead son?” Never mind the statistics that don’t show this kind of “affirmation” necessarily produces positive mental health results or fewer suicides.
The real question is, “Would you rather have an uninjured daughter or someone else’s son being disappointed because he couldn’t play sports on the girl’s team by passing as someone else’s daughter, and then injuring your daughter?”
Wokeness doesn’t sound quite so appealing there, now, does it?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
