The day may come when we stop seeing headlines about the undermining of girls and women’s sports, but that day is not today. Out in Massachusetts, boys are allowed to compete in traditionally girls’ sports including field hockey. And we’re not even talking about transgender students in this case. Regular high school boys, with all of the physical advantages they have over the girls after going through puberty, are allowed to compete on and against girls’ teams. That’s what was happening this week when two high school field hockey teams met on Thursday, pitting Swampscott and Dighton-Rehoboth against each other. Swampscott had at least one boy on their team and he fired off a shot that struck one of the Dighton-Rehoboth girls in the face. The shot resulted in “significant facial and dental injuries” including the girl having two of her teeth knocked out. She was taken from the field and hospitalized. (WCVB)

A student-athlete suffered a significant injury during a field hockey game played Thursday between two Massachusetts high schools, and the incident is renewing a debate about co-ed sports.

Dighton-Rehoboth Superintendent Bill Runey said in a letter to families that a shot taken by a male member of the Swampscott team left one of their female players with “significant facial and dental injuries,” which included having two of her teeth knocked out.

The Dighton-Rehoboth player was hospitalized.

The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association does include transgender students in its rules, but it forbids any type of “discrimination” in scholastic sports based on sex. So the boy on the Swampscott team has “the exact same right” to participate on the girls’ team as anyone else, at least according to the school superintendent.

There are endless memes out there about how rough traditional ice hockey is and you frequently see pictures of players with their teeth blacked out. It’s a rough sport to be sure and injuries come with the territory. But field hockey for girls was intentionally designed to not be as rough. The balls they use are not as dense or as heavy as a hockey puck, though that can still do some damage when fired at a high enough velocity, as was demonstrated on Thursday.

The boys are, on average, bigger and stronger than the girls. They can drive that ball far faster and harder. The girls aren’t used to dealing with that sort of speed. How does anyone see this situation as being fair to the girls?

Much the same as the debate over transgenderism, Massachusetts is once again taking the issue to an unjustifiable extreme. They are pretending that there is no difference between the genders or simply declaring that gender doesn’t exist. The injuries that girl sustained this week put the lie to that theory. There is a significant difference, and it doesn’t matter whether the boy is calling himself a boy or a girl.

And not for nothing, but what’s wrong with that kid who signed up to play on the team? What’s the matter, son? Was ice hockey too tough for you? And now you’ve knocked out some girl’s teeth. Does that make you feel like the Big Man on Campus? Where are this boy’s parents in this debate? Do they support this? Did they push him into it? It’s the adults who need to be addressing this issue. Boys and girls are different. Go check your biology books, assuming they still teach that in public schools. And girls deserve their own sports leagues without having boys involved. That’s why Title IX was set up to begin with.