Signs of life! Some good news appeared in the Toronto Sun yesterday headlined, “
U.S. high school girls' field hockey team refuses to play rival that has transgender players.”
The Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District issued a statement Tuesday announcing it wouldm concede the upcoming girls’ field hockey game against Somerset Berkley Regional High School rather than play. According to reports, Somerset High has two boys playing on the girls’ hockey team, and Dighton’s coaches won’t take the risk of injury to their female players.
Field hockey is one of those underappreciated sports. It’s kind of like a cross between rugby and fast-motion croquet. The players swing hockey sticks knocking a solid and quite hard ball around a grassy field. Boys’ field hockey is almost non-existent, but where it does crop up, the players are draped head to toe in protective gear, which is
not usually a feature of the more genteel female version.
Remember
commotio cordis? You do not want to get hit hard by that field hockey ball.
Dighton’s coaches aren’t transphobes. They have their reasons for refusing to play. Last year, a cross-dressing male player on the rival Swampscott woman’s field hockey team knocked a
Dighton Rehoboth girl’s teeth out during a game (teeth removed at 57:42), despite her mouthguard, sending her to the hospital. (The trans player who scored the teeth, Sawyer Groothius, is pictured above left.)
Folks have reacted to the great news of Dighton’s refusal to play by asking why more schools don’t do the same. It will happen. Less brave institutions must see for themselves that it’s safe first.
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