OPINION:
A high school girl in Massachusetts recently had her front teeth knocked out and severe damage to her face in a field hockey playoff game (“‘Horror’: Girl hit by shot from male player in field-hockey game reportedly loses teeth,” web, Nov. 3).
How did it happen? Via their “equity and inclusion” policy, school officials and state legislators have allowed — indeed, encouraged — boys to join girls’ sports teams.
This young woman will never be the same, and the boy who hit the ball that struck her face on a shot for the goal will be haunted by the incident all his life. It should never have happened.
Boys do not belong on girls’ sports teams, period. Besides the risk of serious injury, as in this case, it violates the first rule of all sports, which is the requirement of fair play. Many boys of high school age have already developed physical traits that give them an unfair advantage in athletic competition against girls.
But there is another reason boys do not belong in direct physical competition with girls. One of the most vital rules that any civilization must teach its boys is that men must never harm women. Erasing or clouding over that once well-understood foundational rule is a guarantee of social disaster — which is sadly all too evident in many aspects of our culture today.
Some years ago, a young man in Iowa made it to the top level of his state high school wrestling competition, but when he saw that his opponent in the next round was a female wrestler, he said he had been taught never to hurt or even risk hurting a girl, and he withdrew from the contest. He gave up his chance at a state championship to do the right thing, proving that he is a real man.
It is tragic that so many school officials and legislators somehow never learned what that boy knew in his heart.
DAVID BURNS
Springfield, Virginia
