Injuries involving trans basketball player spark controversy in Mass.

A girls’ basketball game between two Massachusetts high schools recently made national headlines after one team forfeited at halftime following a series of injuries, some of which allegedly involved a transgender player on the opposing squad.

The coach for the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell girls’ basketball team forfeited the Feb. 8 game against Lynn’s KIPP Academy after a third Lowell player was injured, the charter school explained in a statement. 

“The bench was already depleted going into the game with the 12-player roster having four players unable to play,” according to the statement. “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 game early. The upcoming Charter School playoffs were looming, and he needed a healthy and robust bench in four days.”

According to Collegiate Charter School, the remaining players feared they’d get injured and be unable to compete in the playoffs. The school later confirmed to Boston.com that two of its injured players were hurt in plays involving the KIPP Academy player in question.

Rhonda “Nikki” Barnes, KIPP’s executive director, previously told The Boston Globe that the student identifies as trans and has played on some of the school’s other girls’ sports teams without incident. 

“The vision of KIPP Massachusetts is that every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities,” the school said in a statement. “To do this, we work to create joyful and identity-affirming schools for our students, and prioritize maintaining student and staff safety above everything else.”

MIAA weighs in

The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association handbook states that a student “shall not be excluded from participation on a gender-specific sports team that is consistent with the student’s bona fide gender identity.”

The MIAA defers to the student and their school when it comes to specific gender classification; according to the handbook, a student’s eligibility to participate on a gender-specific sports team is based on either the gender listed on their birth certificate or their “bona fide gender identity.”

In a statement, the MIAA said it “has been made aware of an incident at a girls basketball game between Collegiate Charter School of Lowell and KIPP Academy Lynn Collegiate.”

The athletic association added that it “continues to serve as a resource to its member schools as they navigate the facts of the matter at the local level.”

In its own statement, the Lowell charter school said it supports the coach’s decision to forfeit and “reiterates its values of both inclusivity and safety for all students.”

“We take the standards set by the MIAA and our Board of Trustees seriously and strive to uphold them on and off the court,” the school added. “We also follow the guidance from the MIAA and state laws regarding equity and access for all student-athletes.”

Likewise, KIPP said it “support[s] state laws and regulations, which provide students with the right to participate in all school extracurricular activities and sports based on their gender identity or expression.”

Clip draws criticism online

A clip of a rough play from the Feb. 8 game made the rounds online, where it was reposted by former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines, a vocal opponent of transgender women’s participation in women’s sports. The video shows a KIPP Academy player fighting over the ball with a Collegiate Charter School player, who eventually loses her grip and falls.  

“Who watches this & actually thinks this is ‘compassionate, kind, and inclusive’?” Gaines wrote. Other social media users pointed to the video as evidence that transgender athletes should be excluded from women’s sports.

In its statement, KIPP Academy also pushed back against the online discourse: “We condemn harmful comments being made online toward members of our community, and will continue to let the vision, mission and principles of our organization guide our actions.”

Transgender athletes’ participation in high school sports has proven a hot button issue in recent years, with some arguing that trans athletes may have physiological traits that give them an unfair advantage or put cisgender athletes at risk. 

Yet according to the American Civil Liberties Union, “Excluding women who are trans hurts all women. It invites gender policing that could subject any woman to invasive tests or accusations of being ‘too masculine’ or ‘too good’ at their sport to be a ‘real’ woman.” 

Further, the belief that trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports hurts cisgender women also “reinforces stereotypes that women are weak and in need of protection,” the ACLU argues.