A few weeks back, as I was desperately trying to get as many signatures on my nomination papers as possible, I had a woman look willing to sign for me, but then decided she wanted to ask me some questions on where I stood on the issues. Which is always a completely fair question.
It turns out she only had one question for me. “Where do you stand on boys playing girls’ sports?”
And, sure, I may be new at running for political office, but I’m not new at dealing with people looking at me as a bearded, slightly overweight white guy, probably wearing cargo shorts at the time, and making a quick determination that I am on ‘their team.’ It’s also not my first day on Earth, so I knew very well what her actual question was about.
But, I gave her a sincere look and answered her question directly and honestly.
“Ma’am, I know that there have been boys playing traditionally girl’s sports in Massachusetts for some time, when there is no equivalent boy’s sport offered at their school. I know it happens in Field Hockey and Volleyball and has for some time.”
She took a couple of seconds to process my response and very politely (honestly!) let me know that she would be unable to sign my petition or vote for me.
This morning I actually had the opportunity to do some research on this. I did not know that Massachusetts is the only state that has legally ruled that the Equal Rights Amendment guarantees boys the right to play traditionally girls’ sports (I will be calling them “girl’s sports” moving forward here, entirely for readability’s sake) if the school lacks an equivalent boy’s team.
The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association has released the breakdown of participants in sports for the 2024-25 school year, broken down by both sport and gender.
Last year 161 boys participated in girls’ sports. As I expected, there was Field hockey and Volleyball. There were also 10 boys who participated in Softball.
My numbers don’t count the 21 boys who competed in Gymnastics, because I don’t know enough to know if they directly compete against the girls or how that works. More learning for me to do. They also don’t include potential cases that the numbers I see can’t explain like a theoretical case where a school may not have a boy’s tennis team, but the data I have doesn’t show that.
But, we certainly had a minimum of 161 boys playing girls’ sports last year. The numbers are reasonably consistent going back too.
But my original point to the woman is that this is commonly accepted, even more so from a legal standpoint.
161 student athletes who identify as bona fide males participating in girls’ sports involving some level of face-to-face competition.
I was unable to find the numbers of transgender girls playing sports in Massachusetts, but former governor Charlie Baker, now President of the NCAA, said in late 2024 that less than 0.00196078431373% of college athletes are transgender.
If that percentage were to hold for high school athletes, that would mean that there were three transgender girls out of the 147,550 female athletes competing in Massachusetts high schools. And that’s assuming none of them played multiple sports.
I did not major in math, but I believe that three is a much smaller number than 161.
Sometimes I think this manufactured debate doesn’t really have anything to do with conservatives’ sudden interest in girls’ and women’s athletics at all.