A strapping 6-foot-4-inch freshman boy has been allowed to compete on Illinois District 211's girls' volleyball team, reports Breakthrough Ideas. The male, with no experience, joined the Conant High School freshman team after beating 45 girls for the spot. Along with a physical advantage in the sport that threatens female safety, he is using the female restrooms and locker room at the school.
This is in direct defiance of President Donald Trump’s executive order designed to keep men out of women’s sports. According to the order, the school could lose federal funding because it is going against Title IX protections.
Laurie Higgins, a culture-education writer with Breakthrough Ideas, says this physically imposing boy is changing in the female locker room.
"They have seen him. He wears a bra. And so, even if girls – and I do know that there are girls who are going in the bathroom stalls to change their clothes because he's changing – but it's not just that these girls don't want to be seen. They don't want to see him. They don't want to see boys undressing," says Higgins.
Higgins notes the district is putting not only the girls at risk and but also the district at risk of a lawsuit if a girl from an opposing team is injured by the male player.
She says this situation could quickly be solved by asking the administrators and board to abide by the policy they are imposing on students.
"They're the leaders; they're the role models. You show the kids that it doesn't matter. You change with your male – the female teachers, the female administrators, the female school board members - why don't you change your clothes and go to the bathroom stalls next to your male colleagues?" Higgins says.
