sec17 said:
Here's a true story from Massachusetts. A couple of great big boys, football linebackers, decided to stay in shape in the off-season by taking up hockey - field hockey. Girls' field hockey. They tried to join their school's field hockey team, and were disallowed from joining because of being male. So they sued under Title IX and won - no sex discrimination allowed, and if a sport isn't offered in both boys and girls, the minority gender has to be allowed to play. As a result, they were allowed to change with the girls, to be on the field (220-lb boys and 120-lb girls don't mesh well if they hit each other). They caused several injuries in hitting girls and drove a lot of the girls to quit the team.
And what's wrong with this story? Absolutely nothing, if you subscribe to the idea that a 14-year-old girl should be allowed to change in the boys change room.
Either have it both ways or don't have it, but you can't have it one way and not the other.
What do I think is wrong with the story? The validity. Field hockey and football in Massachusetts are both fall sports-- one is not the "off-season" for another. Perhaps it was another "M" state? I've been involved with coaching HS field hockey in MA for a few years (this will be my first that I'm not helping coach in some capacity), so you'd think it would come up at a meeting somewhere... Not fully negating it since anything is possible, but I do wonder how valid it is.
My HS in Mass. is somewhat of an exception because it wasn't public, but we let guys play on our team for one season. Most guys don't want to play a prissy girls sport like field hockey, but when the opportunity came up, the administration delivered. We had a few German boys who were VERY good at field hockey and they were able to join up with us until they got their boys' field hockey club up and running. Where they changed was never an issue since my HS had more than adequate facilities for both genders when we were at home. Your team meeting was always on the field, not the locker room. Even on the bus if they had to change, it wasn't an issue. None of the girls on my team ever had an issue with the guys since they knew what they were doing and played as well as (if not better than) we did.
Also, with field hockey, there should not be any outlandish body contact and people getting knocked out or injured UNLESS the coach isn't doing their job by teaching proper skill and technique to these burly boys. It can be a very physical sport (I have the yellow cards to prove it), but in all honesty, there is no reason for injuries like that, especially to their own teammates.
Another point I forgot-- most MA public schools (actually, if any do, it's one or two) do not have their own rinks and have to use state facilities for hockey. For other sports, the school is equipped with a boys locker room and a girls locker room, with their home fields right behind the school and no meeting rooms inside the locker room. There is no real need for a guy to be in a girls' locker room for a sport like field hockey or soccer, especially when all team meetings happen on the field or in a classroom. A hockey locker room is completley different.