Report
CANDACE HATHAWAY
APRIL 03, 2024
The trans-identifying high school athlete who caused multiple injuries during a February girls’ basketball game was previously suspended from a rowing team after the male was “caught staring” at a topless female changing in the locker room, the Daily Mail reported.
What’s the background?
The Collegiate Charter School of Lowell in Massachusetts opted to forfeit a basketball game against KIPP Academy Lynn on February 8 after three of its players were benched due to injuries, Blaze News previously reported.
According to the charter school, the remaining players on the team “expressed concern” to their coach that they may also sustain injuries if they continued.
“The players feared getting injured and not being able to compete in the playoffs,” the charter school stated.
A male, trans-identifying KIPP Academy Lynn player, who is reportedly over six feet tall and has facial hair, was allegedly responsible for causing multiple injuries throughout the game.
A video of one of the game’s plays showed the KIPP Academy Lynn athlete ripping the basketball away from a female opponent, causing her to fall to the ground. She then appears to fail to stand up as she clutches her back in pain, according to the video.
Following the incident, the charter school released a statement supporting its coach’s decision to forfeit the game, noting the “roughness of [the] play” that was caught on video.
KIPP Academy “condemn[ed] harmful comments being made online toward members of our community.” The male player, believed to be 17 or 18 years old, is reportedly on the school’s girls’ volleyball team and track team.
Athlete booted from rowing team
A March 20, 2024, report sent to the United States Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana revealed that the trans-identifying male athlete was previously suspended from a “private, free-standing rowing league” in Massachusetts governed by the United States Rowing Association, according to a parent.
The parent told the committee that the male athlete was permitted to join the women’s varsity crew team but was removed after “caus[ing] many issues for the female athletes.”
“The male athlete was also allowed to use the women’s locker room in accordance with USA Rowing [USRowing] policy,” the report read. “The female athletes avoided using the locker room, but nonetheless a few months later, the male athlete was caught staring openly at one of the female athletes while she changed her clothes in the women’s locker room and remarked, ‘oooh t*****s!’ When a female athlete nearby asked if it was the first time he had seen female breasts, the male responded, ‘uhh yeah’ with a laugh. The male athlete was suspended for this incident.”
The report called the incident a “direct case of harassment.”
Fifteen parents penned a letter to USRowing in October 2022 claiming their children were “intimidated” into silence, the Quillette reported. According to the parents, the male athlete joined the female rowing team after placing “near the bottom” on the club’s male team. Parents claimed that the athlete did not shave or make any other attempts to appear more feminine, noting he also continued to wear the male club’s uniform.
“Our daughters have stayed quiet because they are afraid,” parents wrote, according to Quillette. “Name-calling and the threat of mental health is being used as emotional blackmail to keep us all quiet while women are harmed and devalued. ... Our daughters also faced a locker room situation where they were uncomfortable. ... They stopped changing in the locker room and began to hide away. These young girls should never have been put through being told they had to face a male body everyday as they undressed.”
“The rowing team also required the male athlete to room with them on trips. The girls spoke to us about quitting rowing because of the intimidation of being forced to be in a hotel room alone with a male,” the parents added.
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